Breaking the frame

Conversation with Shannon Jackson, Hendrik Folkerts and Pieter T'Jonck (moderator).

Performatik opts for the fascinating cross-over between performance arts and visual art. By choosing for ‘biennial of performance art’ instead of ‘festival’ as a subtitel, it highlights the fact that it is often difficult to maintain the old distinction between ‘theatre’ and ‘visual art’ (word and live action versus image). What is at stake, is the interesting overlap between the disciplinary boundaries. All artists invited have in common that they play with the codes, conventions and expectations of the world of performance and visual art. The binding element is the live event, the meeting between audience and the performer, in the here and now.

In this series of salons, we invite artists, curators and critics to reflect on different questions related to this interdisciplinary dialogue in an informal round table conversation. To what extent do some of these performances play with our frames of reference and expectations?  Does a theatrical spectator has a different mindset compared to a museum visitor? How do these interdisciplinary experiences disrupt classical viewing positions? And given the fact that visiting an exhibition has another course and rhythm than the given time slot of a theatre performance, what is the consequence for an artist working on the borderline?

Shannon Jackson
professor Theater, Dance and Performance Studies at University of California, Berkeley; upcoming book: The Way We Perform Now

Hendrik Folkerts
curator Performance, Film & Discursive Programs at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, curator Documenta 14, 2017