ActionHere/BeingThere

Curated by Quinn Dukes

Exhibition Dates: July 1-31

Reception + Curator talk July 21st 6-9pm

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Statement

Performance is Alive is pleased to present ActionHere/BeingThere - a performance art-based video exhibition curated on the occasion of the inaugural Denver Month of Video (.MOV). ActionHere/BeingThere presents an exciting range of performance-based practices from international artists, providing .MOV viewers an opportunity to experience the boundlessness of performance.

Seminal live art tropes such as endurance, repetition, and the political body are boldly displayed throughout the selected works. Performance, as an act of transference is explored by Zaire Kacmarski’s ritualistic performance, Remember. While repetition serves as the anchor point for Caida Libre (Free Fall) by Momo Magallon and Chinasa Vivian Ezugha ’s glossolalic audio piece entitled Tongues.

Durational actions are enacted by Nicola Fornoni in the site-specific video Overshoot Day, filmed within a marble quarry. Riccardo Matlakas’ public performance, Melting Borders, Mexico / USA border presents an excerpt from a project that has spanned multiple iterations across 4 countries.

Actions birthed from an exploration of intersectionality and the political are prominent within works by Zachary Fabri, Arantxa Araujo, and Kiyo Guitierrez. Fabri’s piece, Mourning Stutter, is informed by successive murders of African Americans by police officers. Araujo’s performance for camera punctuates the politics of migration and Gutiérrez organized a fierce public performance on the ‘Roundabout of the Disappeared in the Mexico feminicida.

Within the making and presentation of performance art, performers must be actively engaged in their individual “beingness” while inspiring the viewer to grow aware of their ownness. This exhibition tests the boundaries of self, but also the boundaries of being screened.

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Exhibition Details

Riccardo Matlakas "Melting Borders" (Italy)

Riccardo Matlakas’ performances are often the result of the analysis of a culture and the context he works in. As both a visual artist and a performance artist, Riccardo creates physical engaging works often concerning human spiritual development and growth. The artist questions human behaviour and identity through his actions, happenings, paintings/street art and performances. The artist journey in arts is to find a common point among every race and culture, where we unify as one race and gender, deconstructing political identity to bring all humans to the essence. Matlakas’ activity as an artist begins in the process of thinking. Its process is an active part of his artwork: research, conversations and location, play a very important part in the artist’s way of making art; highlighting the connection with other beings as an active part of the making, which will lead to the final outcome, regardless of its medium.

Chinasa Vivian Ezugha "Tongues" (United Kingdom)

‘What kind of documentation can be derived from glossolalic speech and its presentation?’ It does so through the development and creation of an audio performance, realised in collaboration with the artists' sisters recorded in everyday mundane spaces such as the kitchen or bedroom. This project examines the practice of glossolalia within family relationships and the everyday, and the way in which spoken glossolalia can be used to further discussions around our relationship to the voice as a form of connection to our bodies and others. 

The piece approaches glossolalia as a summoning speech that began with audio recordings made during prayer sessions while in Covid-19 lockdown and with her family. The piece plays with rhythm and repetition to present a poetic rendering of glossolalic utterances.

In this, the artist seeks to investigate, through practice, the interconnected dialogues developed in communal utterances of glossolalia. She aims to engage with glossolalia as a method of disruption, while becoming aware of the environments in which it occurs. This is notion forced the artist to focus on the transmission of this type of speech and how the environmental context shifts the meaning of the speech. By this, she is alluding to the removal of the speech from a religious setting into the everyday spaces like the kitchen.

Kiyo Gutiérrez "Mexico Feminicida" (United Kingdom)

Mexico feminicida is a public space performance project against gender violence, which consists of four interventions, that were activated every year during the Women’s History Month of March (2020-2023) in the city of Guadalajara, Mexico. Fire, earth, air and water were the elements of nature that inspired every piece. On May 4th 2023, the last performance which corresponded to water was presented.

At the Roundabout of the Disappeared, a historical monument that has been renamed by family members of missing persons and femicide victims in order to demand justice, a group of women carrying metal tubes, broke large traditional pottery jars that contained hundreds of liters of red cabbage dye. This dye works as a natural PH indicator substance that when in contact with a non-neutral substance changes color. When the jars exploded, the purple liquid spilled all over the white canvas and reacted to the acidity of a hidden message that had been previously written with lemon juice:

MEXICO FEMINICIDA

Y

TRANSFEMINICIDA

This project aims to denounce the brutal increase in gender violence, transfemicides and femicides and the lack of action from the Mexican Government. It is also a public and collective acknowledgement of such a crisis, a demand for justice and an opportunity to ignite unexpected alliances and solidarity, both locally and globally.

Note: the canvas hung only momentarily in the monument wall in order to dry, hiding the missing persons posters was not intended.

Nicola Fornoni "Overshoot Day" (Italy)

The body is a scar. My body is a scar. Nature is full of scars. our environment is going across a point of no return. and the days are arriving at the end. human presence and many of our habits have been overwhelming nature around us. I get a water glass with a drop of water in my mouth with all my muscle strength for one hour.  

Zachary Fabri "Mourning Stutter" (USA)

Mourning Stutter is a video performance informed by the successive murders of Black people by police officers. The title posits that the Black community is in a state of perpetual mourning, specifically relating to the violence of policing and white supremacy. Consisting of performance, video, photography, and an original sound score, this project not only reclaims the freedom to access and hold public space without fear but also asserts the necessity to imagine, build and experience joy in a public sphere. 

I created a series of actions in over 30 public locations throughout Center City Philadelphia. Following a predetermined route, these actions responded to and were choreographed by the architecture and urban design of each location as I discovered unintentional spatial relationships between body and site. Important to the work is the simultaneous performance for the camera and the passer-by. The dual audience function allowed me to assign primary focus to the lens while acknowledging the spectacle of my body in public space. The live performance had a duration of over two hours, which was edited down to eight minutes.

Momo Magallon "Caida Libre" (Panama)

Caida Libre (Free Fall) is a repetitive exercise of falling backward from a ladder onto a pile of mattresses. This is similar to the exercise commonly done in the workplace in order to create stronger bonds of trust among the participants. Nonetheless, Caida Libre (Free Fall), is an exercise of self-confidence and courage. This is an attempt to materialize that fear of the unknown, letting go and confronting it at the same time. A repetitive action to develop a sense of security in the face of uncertainty.

Arantxa Araujo "Yerma" (Mexico)

YERMA is an eight-minute video about the politics of migration, survival, and the body and, performance for the camera series that addresses the politics of space as impacted by cultural, social, economic, climate, and survival factors. All journeys to find a new home are testaments of strength, resiliency and perseverance, are rituals of remembrance, and are exercises to understand and become aware. 

Yerma is part of the EMERGENCY Series, which investigates the politics of migration, mobility and space around the globe highlighting hyperlocal situations. 

Zaire Aranguren "Remember" (Venezuela/America)

In my artwork "Remember," I delve into the profound act of untangling emotional information within the body. This video performance piece unfolds organically, devoid of rehearsal or a scripted framework, allowing raw and spontaneous reactions to guide the exploration. The central figure is an archetypal Latin/Hispanic woman wearing a white skirt with an open side, revealing glimpses of her leg. She occupies an antique wooden chair facing the camera but avoids direct eye contact. A heavy rope rests on the floor on her right side.

Through the ritualistic intertwining and unraveling of the rope, the woman embodies memory, drawing inspiration from the ancient tradition of using knots as mnemonic devices. Her focused gaze, intricate tangling, and untangling symbolize the interplay between personal recollections, femininity, and virtue.

Inspired by the work of Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuna, whose exploration of "Quipus," an ancient Inca form of record-keeping, resonated deeply with me, I embarked on a journey of self-discovery. Reflecting upon the influences that have shaped my subjectivity, I sought to unveil connections with others who share similar statuses and situations.

"Remember" serves as an exploration of my personal journey while offering a bridge for collective introspection. It delves into the intricate landscape of memory, inviting viewers to reflect on their own emotional tapestries.