Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, Untitled (Holding Horizon), 2018. Frieze Artist Award, Frieze Art Fair, London. Image Spyros Rennt.
BIENNALE ARTE 2019: PERFORMANCE PROGRAMME
About
Artist and choreographer, Alex Baczynski-Jenkins (Poland/UK) traces queer politics of desire, vulnerability, and collectivity. His practice is concerned with the mediation of queer embodiment and relationality, through choreographies of affect, empathy and intimacy.
Alex was a UK associate artist at Delfina Foundation in 2015, 2016 and 2018.
Performance
Untitled (Holding Horizon), 2018
A neon sign created by the Warsaw-based feminist and queer collective Kem—of which the artist is co-founder and member—will be installed above the entrance and switched on when the performance is happening. Untitled (Holding Horizon) (2018) draws on the box step, a basic movement used in several social dances, to explore collectivity, subjectivity, queer embodiment and desire. Synchronised movements co-exist with moments of slippage and letting go, each performer embodying individual and shared gestures and affections. The performers both affect, and become affected by, the live sound and light mixing. In this altered state, the box step becomes a container for the relational force that resides in moving with others.
Watch an excerpt of this performance here (from 02:43).
Credits
Presented with support from European ArtEast Foundation and Francise Chang
Originally commissioned for the 2018 Frieze Artist Award, in partnership with Delfina Foundation, and presented as part of Frieze Projects, curated by Diana Campbell Betancourt
Developed as part of Kem’s residency at Ujazdowski Castle Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw
Curatorial Advisor: Eliel Jones
Production Manager: Ola Knychalska
Sound and Lighting: Krzysztof Baginski
Sound Research: Tobias Koch, Filip Lech and Jana Androsova
Performers: Ewa Dziarnowska, Agata Grabowska, Tiran Normanson, Sigrid Stigsdatter and Rafal Pierzynski
With special thanks to: Billy Morgan