Performance has become increasingly present in visual art institutions in the twenty-first century. The form, in which it is exhibited, however varies widely. Artistic visions, production costs, curatorial approaches, and institutional means are decisive for how performance is exhibited. This workshop offers a condensed introduction to the history of the avant-gardist medium of performance, its theoretical discursive conceptions, and modes in which it has been exhibited over the past twenty years in international cultural institutions devoted to the visual arts.

The workshop will cover the  following topics:

• avant-gardist performance practices in the twenty-century
• performance documentation and performance reenactments
• performance spaces (public, institutional, digital, private)
• interdisciplinary approaches to exhibiting performance
• producing, curating, and writing about performance

Schedule, 4-7 November 2024

This intensive 4-day workshop comprises of short interactive lectures, discussions of assigned readings and presented case studies, group work (Monday – Wednesday) and concludes with an excursion to the Museum der Moderne Salzburg (Thursday, full day trip). On Thursday, we will visit the exhibition that I have co-curated on the work of the pioneering British performance artist Rose English, whose work has been a long-term focal point of my research and critical engagement with the form of contemporary performance.

https://www.museumdermoderne.at/en/exhibitions/detail/begin-suddenly-in-splendour-rose-english-performance-presence-spectacle/

At 6pm that day, we will also watch one of the newly commissioned four-part performance programme that surrounds the exhibition.

https://www.museumdermoderne.at/en/events/detail/the-things-of-the-world-for-rose/

4 November, Montag: Workshop-Lecture, 10-13h, Seminarraum, Postgasse 6 5 November, Dienstag: Workshop-Lecture, 15-18h, SR, Postgasse 6 6 November, Mittwoch: Workshop-Lecture, 15-18h, SR, Postgasse 6

7 November, Thursday: Excusion to Salzburg, Museum der Moderne: Rose English Exhibition + Performance in Evening, 9-19.30h

Aim

Focused on the question how performance can be curatorially produced and exhibited in the cultural institutions of the visual arts, collaboratively with the artists, the workshop aims to expand our understanding of performance as both, an artistic medium, subject for critical analysis, and curatorial/writing practice.

-- prepare small tasks for this course in advance -- more information will follow early October. 

-- active participation in class, obligatory participation 

-- revise and finalise research and writing excerises from each class/day, for the following day

--a short piece of writing, to be submitted after the workshop in the winter semester