Talk

Let's Talk about Images 2.1.0: Manuel Pelmuş and Katalin Erdödi

Manuel Pelmuş and Katalin Erdödi to launch #Exercise no. 1 within Let's Talk about Images 2.1.0: Double lecture performance

Time: 16 April 2020, 17:00-18:30 (UTC+2)

Location: Follow link to Fotogalleriet

To tackle the current moment of crisis, Fotogalleriet has asked reputable and young artists to guide us through their thinking processes, generating an alternative space for critical thinking and advocating new forms of freedom and togetherness. All of this under the moniker Let's Talk about Images 2.1.0. Over the next eight weeks, we will present a series of interventions by artists that analyse, question and explore our precarious present-day.

For the first week of the programme, we invite you to a unique lecture performance by award-winning artist and KHiO research fellow Manuel Pelmuş.

Pelmuş will present two existing works in a new version, revisiting their initial premise and further reflecting on their relation to today’s economy of presence, value production, strategies of disappearance, and the politics involved in the ‘performative’ within the current experience economy and hyper-mediated society. These works’ undercurrents have taken on a renewed relevance due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on cultural production and mediation, which lends itself to further exploration.

In his critically acclaimed solo piece preview (2007), the artist's presence is only discernible through his voice, which describes movements made by the body, behind a veil of darkness. The boundaries between live performance and audio installation grow hazy, in favour of an altered hierarchy of the senses: ears ahead of eyes. In Borderlines, first presented at the Centre Pompidou in Paris during May 2019, Pelmuş returns to his own memories of crossing the boarder after the fall of the Berlin Wall; part performances and part personal history, this piece aggregates notions of visibility and invisibility, moving between history and politics of representation. Such remembrances playfully update and reflect on the notions of boundaries, be it nation states or artistic disciplines.

The lecture performance will take place via Zoom at 17:00 local time (UTC+2), to be followed by a conversation between Pelmuş and curator Katalin Erdödi. The audience will be able to actively join the broadcast and ask questions.

NB: For the performance we suggest wearing an audio headset as sound will play a crucial role. If you experience a "malfunction" in the digital platform during the event it may be part of the piece, as the performance will happen in darkness. Just sit back and relax, and be ready with questions.

About the contributors

Manuel Pelmuş works across different contexts, such as museums, theatre and the public space. He choreographs ongoing actions, often employing enactment as a performative strategy. His works reflect on the construction of history, collective memory, the body in the public sphere, and the context of specific places and institutions, in order to challenge existing protocols of representation. His artworks are part of several public collections as live actions. He is currently a research fellow at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo (KHiO). His live works have been exhibited within art exhibitions such as Off-Biennale, Budapest (2017, 2015); The Romanian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013); Tate Modern London (2016); Para Site, Hong Kong (2018); The Kiev Biennale (2015); the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2019, 2015); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2016); BOZAR, Brussels (2020); SALT, Istanbul (2016); the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2014); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2015), among others. In 2012, Pelmuş was awarded the Berlin Art Prize for performance arts and later recognized with the prize for excellence from the National Dance Center of Bucharest in 2015.

Katalin Erdödi works as an independent curator, dramaturge and researcher in the fields of contemporary art and performance, with a focus on cross-disciplinary collaboration, politically engaged artistic and curatorial strategies, and art in public space, understood in the broadest sense as social, architectural, and discursive space. Central to her practice is an experimentation with different formats, from performance through exhibition-making to site-specific and process-oriented projects, with an interest in art as social practice and a tool for knowledge production.

She has worked as a curator for art institutions and festivals, such as steirischer herbst (Graz), brut/imagetanz festival (Vienna), GfZK – Museum of Contemporary Art (Leipzig), Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art (Budapest) and Trafó House of Contemporary Arts (Budapest). As a freelancer she co-founded and curated various self-organised initiatives, such as PLACCC Festival (Budapest), an international festival for site-specific performance and art in public space, Body Moving (Budapest), a contemporary dance event in urban spaces, or Der Blöde Dritte Mittwoch (Vienna), an experimental music and performance series. Currently, she is member of the curatorial board for independent theatre, dance and performance at the Municipal Department of Cultural Affairs in Vienna. Alongside her curatorial work, Erdödi also collaborates as a dramaturge/outside eye with performance artists, such as Sonja Jokiniemi, Gin Müller, Oleg Soulimenko, Sööt/Zeyringer and Doris Uhlich. She regularly publishes in various arts journals and magazines, including Bildpunkt, Springerin, etcetera - Performing Arts Magazine, Mezosfera and tranzitblog.

About let´s talk about images 2.1.0

Let’s Talk About Images 2.1.0 is a #stayhome programme conceived and produced by Fotogalleriet in Oslo, Norway. The programme takes place from 16 April - 7 June 2020. The participating artists are announced on Fotogalleriet’s Instagram account every Monday. Follow us on Instagram for developing programme announcements and projects.

Artistic Director Antonio Cataldo says:

– We are not turning digital, but we are hijacking the only available platforms at our disposal at the moment to keep discussions alive. This is in line with our mission to catalyse new and cutting-edge practices within the arts, and give artists a platform and needed support, enabling them to continue their artistic practice in these daunting times. By doing so, we hope to provide an opportunity to think freely and independently, share with others different worlds and modes of being, and to continuously affect thought.

To read more about the programme please click here or contact us at post@fotogalleriet.no.