Show / Concert
Alexandra Bachzetsis, "2020: Obscene"
Installation, videos and various materials, 2022
15 Jun - 2 Jul 2023
The event is over
2020: Obscene was designed during the 2020 Covid epidemic and the period of questioning it generated. This work is presented as a play for a theatre stage and as an installation.
The body, text and images are used to explore the conceptual and organisational links between these two words: obscene and scene, and to observe their ambiguities by examining the question of the subversive and the normative. In doing so, the artist interrogates the constant contemporary consumption of images and their language. The work examines how a body presented as excessive can be exhibited and consumed on stage by a devouring gaze, while evoking the dialectic between sexuality and death. By exploring the theatricality and staging of the body through this desiring gaze, and exposing the ambiguities of gender identities and sexual archetypes such as high heels, BDSM (bondage, domination, submission, sado-masochism) adornments and roleplays, it establishes the body as a space of alienation and limitation.
The brochure provided for the public in the installation space contains the dialogues (in English) of the show, derived from various sources of inspiration (films and plays), which no longer feature in the installation which is presented as an indefinitely repeating motif.
Alexandra Bachzetsis (1974, Zurich) is a Zurich-based choreographer and artist. Her practice is situated at the intersection of dance, performance, the visual arts and theatre. She has created more than thirty, often collaborative pieces that have been presented in theatres, festivals and museums. Her work has been exhibited in the Basel Kunsthalle (Switzerland), in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (Netherlands), in the Tate Modern, London (United Kingdom), in the MoMA, New York (United States) in the Art Institute of Chicago (United States), in many biennales, at documenta 13 in Kassel (Germany) and in the Biennale de l'Image en Movement, Geneva (Switzerland).
When
11am - 9pm, every days except tuesdays
Due to their sexually explicit nature, some of the works presented in this exhibition may offend the sensibilities of the general public
Where
Vue d’exposition « Alexandra Bachzetsis. 2020 : Obscene », (Kunsthaus Zürich, 2022)
Photo : © Kunsthaus Zürich, Franca Candrian