X-on

The Austrian artist Franz West was recently awarded the Golden Lion for his whole oeuvre at the Venice Biennale. In the early seventies, West made his first portable sculptures or adaptives. He encased everyday objects in gauze and plaster so that the public could pick them up and walk around with them.

Last year, West asked the Bulgarian performer Ivo Dimchev to make two videos using his adaptives as examples of what is possible for the visitors to his exhibitions. In his turn, Dimchev asked if he could create a performance using the sculptures. This resulted in the solo I-on and has now led to a group production for four performers on which Dimchev and West will collaborate closely. West will make some new and larger adaptives with which several bodies can enter into a relationship. Just as in I-on, music will play a major part in this unique relationship between bodies and art objects.

The Bulgarian artist Ivo Dimchev has lived in Brussels since 2009. His work excels in inimitable weird fantasies and an impressive physical idiom and use of the voice. He is himself the director, choreographer, writer, singer and performer of all his pieces. His solo Som Faves was selected for the 2010 Theaterfestival. Last year he both opened and closed the Performatik festival, with I-on and we.art.dog.com.

on I-on: ‘Ivo Dimchev “dialogue” avec des sculptures minimales de Franz West, un des artistes contemporains les plus influents. Il tourne autour, les caresse, les pose sur lui, les fixe, et son corps aussi devient sculpture, vibrante et haletante. … une performance réjouissante.’
La Libre Belgique