DANSER SA VIE
DANSE ET ARTS VI SU ELS AUX 20E ET 21 E SIÉCLES
23 NOVEMBER 2011 - 2 APRIL 2012
GALERIE 1, LEVEL 6
The Centre Pompidou will present an unprecedented exhibition devoted to the relationship between dance and the visual arts, from 1900 to the present. Covering over 2,000 square metres, the exhibition draws on the Centre's tradition of major multidisciplinary shows, a tradition its president Alain Seban has said he wishes to revive. Both original and prolific, the theme will be explored through works by the greatest artistic figures of the 20th century, the contributions of the founding movements of artistic modernism, and the current explorations of important contemporary artists and dancers.
Danser sa vie shows how dance and the visual arts together struck the spark of modernity, inspiring both the major artistic movements and the key figures who made the history of modern and contemporary art.
Conjoining the modern with the contemporary, this exhibition in three acts will show how both art and dance have explored the body in movement. The exhibition Danser sa vie will allow us to discover this hidden aspect of the avant-garde art movements as a constant source of inspiration for contemporary art by establishing a dialogue between all the disciplines, of the choreographic as of the visual arts, from painting to contemporary video. A vast selection of paintings, sculptures, installations, films, videos and dance works will testify to the continual exchanges between them.
The title Danser sa vie [Dancing Ones Life] is taken from Isadora Duncan, the pioneer of modern dance: "My Art is just an effort to express the truth of my Being in gesture and movement ... Before the public which has thronged my representations I have had no hesitation. I have given them the most secret impulses of my soul. From the first I have only danced my life"
[Isadora Duncan, My Life, New York, 19271.
AN EXHIBITION IN THREE SECTIONS
THE DANCE OF THE SENSES, FROM AUGUSTE RODIN TO MATTHEW BARNEY
The invention of a new subjectivity is explored through the birth of a free dance emancipated from classical tradition. In Germany, in the years of Expressionism and of "Freikorperkultur" [Free Body Culture or "naturism"I, there was a hitherto unprecedented exchange between artists and dancers, exemplified, for instance, in the relationship between dancer Mary Wigman and the painters Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Emil Nolde. Later, other close relationships would be established, as for example between Martha Graham and sculptor lsamu Noguchi. From Vaslav Nijinsky to Matthew Barney,
from Henri Matisse to Maya Deren, and Pina Bausch to Mike Kelley, film and contemporary art have both entertained a dialogue with the masters of modern dance.
THE ABSTRACTION OF THE BODY, FROM LOïE FULLER TO ALWIN NIKOLAIS
Here the birth of abstraction is viewed through the choreographic inventions of Loïe Fuller and the ways in which Kandinsky, the Cubists, the Futurists, the Bauhaus and the Russian avant-gardes made use of dance. Certain figures, such as Sophie Taeuber-Arp, were both dancers and visual artists. Others maintained a dialogue with dancers, as did Kandinsky with Gret Palucca and Calder with Josephine Baker. The explorations of Nicolas Scholler and Alwin Nikolais then bring this story to a close with mechanical ballets, kinetic inventions and virtual dances. This section also includes a new work by Olafur Eliasson specially conceived for the exhibition.
THE BODY AS EVENT, FROM DADA TO JEROME BEL
This last section considers the connections between dance and performance art and vice versa, from the first Dada actions at Cabaret Voltaire to the deployment of tasks [gestures taken from everyday lifel by dancer Anna Halprin, from the birth of the happening with Allan Kaprow to Black Mountain College. In the 1960s, Merce Cunningham engaged an artistic dialogue with John Cage, and indeed with Andy Warhol. A selection of works and documents looks back to the Judson Church in New York and then highlights the influence of popular clubbing and techno culture.
LIVE PERFORMANCE
Performance-installations by Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Tino Sehgal, and performances by Trisha Brown [supported by the Centre National de la Danse, Paris, and the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris) and young contemporary artists bring dance alive for this event.
PUBLICATIONS
Editions du Centre Pompidou will publish two works to mark the exhibition: a scholarly catalogue
and an anthology of texts by choreographers, writers, dancers, artists and philosophers.
ALONGSIDE THE EXHIBITION A cycle of lectures and discussions and a programme organised by the Live Performance department [with Meg Stuart, Maria La Ribot, Olga de Soto, Myriam Gourfink, Herman Diephuis and othersl will have the whole of the Centre Pompidou join the dance. So indeed will the cinemas, the regular Videodanse programme contributing the screening of 200 films, featuring the work of some hundred choreographers and retracing the history of modern and contemporary dance. The thematic organisation of this programme invites the viewer to note the successive "ruptures" and claims of filiation, in other words, to observe both the multiple dialogue that artists maintain with works of the past and the turbulent and complex process of the emergence of the new.
List of Artists (Subject to Change)
Carl ANDRE
Charles ATLAS
Josephine BAKER
Matthew BARNEY
Baroness Elsa van FREYTAG-LORINGHOVEN
Pina BAUSCH
Max BECKMANN
Jerome BEL
Gerhard BOHNER
Frederic BOISSONNAS
Antoine BOURDELLE
Constantin BRANCUSI
Trisha BROWN
Alexander CALDER
Giannina CENSI
Etienne CHAMBAUD
Lucinda CHILDS/ Sol LE WITT
Rene CLAIR
Lizica CODREANO
Merce CUNNINGHAM
Emile JAQUES- DALCROZE
Sonia DELAUNAY
François DELSARTE
Fortunato DEPERO
André DERAIN
Theo van DOESBURG
Isadora DUNCAN
Olafur ELIASSON
Boris ERDMAN/ Nikolai FOREGGER
Nicolas FLOC'H / Rachid OURAMDANE
Jan FABRE
William FORSYTHE
Lo"ie FULLER
Valeska GERT
Felix GONZALEZ-TORRES
Martha GRAHAM
Ann HALPRIN
Raoul HAUSMANN
Alex HAY
Deborah HAY
Vilmos HUSZAR
Niddy IMPEKOVEN
Jasper JOHNS
Kurt JOOSS
Vassily KANDINSKY
Allan KAPROW
Anne Teresa De KEERSMAEKER / Thierry DE MEY
Ernst Ludwig KIRCHNER
Yves KLEIN
Harald KREUTZBERG
Frantisek KUPKA
Rudolf van LABAN
Ange LECCIA
Fernand LEGER
Rene LE SOMPTIER
Babette MANGOLTE
Daria MARTIN
Henri MATISSE
Vsevolod MEYERHOLD
Jeff MILLS
Simon DYBBROE M0LLER
Robert MORRIS
Tomoyoshi MURAYAMA
Eadweard MUYBRIDGE
Bruce NAUMAN
Vaslaw NIJINSKY
Alwin NIKOLATS
Kelly NIPPER
lsamu NOGUCHI
Emil NOLDE
Helie OITICICA
Gret PALUCCA
Valentin PARNAC
Steve PAXTON
Mai-Thu PERRET
Francis PICABIA
Pablo PICASSO/ Hans NAMUTH
Jackson POLLOCK
Yvonne RAINER
Robert RAUSCHENBERG
Man RAY
Christian RIZZO
Auguste RODIN
Alexandre RODTCHENKO
Charlotte RUDOLPH
Jia RUSKAJA
Alexander SACHAROFF
Valentine de SAINT-POINT
Kazuo SHI RAGA
Lavinia SCHULZ & Walter HOLDT
Oskar SCHLEMMER
Carolee SCH NEEMANN
Kurt SCHMIDT
Nicolas SCHOFFER
Tino SEHGAL
Gino SEVERIN I
Varvara STEPANOVA
Sophie TAEUBER-ARP
Andy WARHOL
Mary WIGMAN