All Performance Art

Performance Architecture

Performance Art / 2000

Press release

Performance Architecture

Tuesday 14th & Wednesday 15th November 2000

A Collaboration between 291 Gallery + Chelsea College of Art and Design

Two nights of installations/performances/projections exploring the common ground between architecture, installation and performance. The events follow the ‘International Performing Architecture Symposium’ at Tate Modern (10-12 November 2000).

#226 Main Gallery 7pm-11pm

Ken Wilder in Collaboration with Dieter Pietch

A newly commissioned site-specific architectural installation and digital video performance. The installation arises out of the absent architecture of La Corbusier's church at La Tourette. The space is 'inhabited' by the video performance

Ken Wilder has both practised and taught architecture. He studied environmental design at the Royal College of Art. In 1998 he had a joint exhibition with Julian Maynard Smith - Spaces and Narrations - at the 97-99 Gallery, London. In the crypt-like basement of the Gallery, he exhibited San Lorenzo Trilogy, three large architectural constructions. A book, funded by the Arts Council of England, accompanied the exhibition. He is currently senior lecturer in interior and spatial design at Chelsea College of Art and Design.

Dieter Pietsch is an artist with work in a number of major international public collections. He has received the Art Prize of the City of Ulm, an Arts Council of Great Britain Award, and an Artist-in-Residence award at the University of Edinburgh. He has created installations for the Rosemary Butcher Dance Company and Stage Design for the Theater in der Westentasche, Ulm, Germany. Recent exhibitions include: Parrallelen, at the Kunstlerkreis Oertenau Galerie, Offenburg, Germany. He is a visiting lecturer at Chelsea College of Art and Design.

Waterfall 6 South Wing Gallery 8pm-9pm

From the sequence of 48 waterfalls by the Theatre of Mistakes - 1977

Anthony Howell directs two performances of Waterfall 6 - originally performed by The Theatre of Mistakes at the Hayward Gallery and Paula Cooper Gallery in New York. Performers control the movement of the water by pouring cups of water to each other, balanced on a structure of tables and chairs controlled strictly by the recitation of verse.

Anthony Howell was founder and director of The Theatre of Mistakes. He is the author of The analysis of Performance Art: A Guide to its Theory and Practice (Harwood Academic Publishers, 1999), and is co-author of Elements of Performance Art. He has also published a novel and seven books of poetry. He recently directed The Infernal Triangle at the ICA. After the performance Anthony Howell will be available to sign copies of his books.

Performers: Hugo Danino, Rene Eyre, Anthony Howell, Navraj Sidhu, Lorna Stewart, Alexandra Wood.

Julian Maynard Smith/Station House Opera 291 Bar Screen 7-8pm and 9-11pm

A continuous video installation of architectural performances presenting an architecture of constant mutation, blurring the distinction between the construction site and the ruin.

Julian Maynard Smith is the founder and artistic director of Station House Opera. Since 1980 the company has devised and created over 20 productions. He has received the Cambridge University Fellowship at Kettle’s Yard and in 1997 the award from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts in New York. Recent work includes: Dresdenn nn rrrrrr, commissioned by Theater der Welt Dresden; Salisbury Proverbs, commissioned by the Salisbury Festival; Roadmetal, Sweetbread, performed at the ICA, Hayward Gallery, Munich, Lausanne, Madrid, Budapest, Dijon, Weimar, Geneva; Good Neighbours (solo work), Offene Räume, Stuggart.