Performing the city
7th February - 16th March 2009
Curator: Heinz Schütz
Opening Saturday 7th February, 19:00h
Tokyo Seoul Moscow Ljubljana Naples Munich
Berlin Paris São Paulo New York Mexico City
Art Actionism in Urban Areas in the 1960s / 1970s
The cities aren't merely the lump sum of its static architecture but the result of public activities and social processes. Starting from this premise, "Performing the city"concentrates on different Asiatic, European and American cities and, for the first time, it reflects the relation between city and performative art with a wide overview - putting at the first level the performative urbanism of the 1960s and 1970s.
Between premonitory signals of social and institutional criticism, the artists go into the street conceiving it as a democratic ideally and public expression area. Driven by the avant-gardist utopia of a reconciliation between "art and life", they replace the art's object-character with people action. So it shows a wide artistic spectrum of concepts and prominently physical, playful and openly political actions.
By its happenings, actions, performances and interventions, the performative urbanism don't care about national and continental boundaries, expressing differently from city to city. This takes place in a social revival atmosphere, connecting from time to time with the emancipatory movements of the 1960s and 1970s, directed towards a democratization of the society - in the overcoming of the traditional hierarchies, the hardening of society, and political repressions.