Posted March 18, 2010
Exhibition 22 - 25
FEBRUARY 2010
Symposium 24 FEBRUARY 2010
Contemporary artists Franko
B, Oreet Ashery, Ralf Obergfell, Tony HorneckerAna Laura López de la Torre will be participating
and exhibiting their work in a week long exploration of Gender and
Performance
at the Royal College of Art.
Organised
by the RCA Students’ Union, the exhibition, performances and symposium
will question how gender, sex, embodiment and the real are constructed,
participated in and performed. The events are part of DiverseRCA,
a programme of public events that looks at strands of human rights
including
race, gender, religious belief, sexual orientation, disability and age
in relation to art and design. The aim is to explore how art and design
can provide a unique understanding of each strand of human rights that
is beyond existing policy or sociological knowledge.
The exhibition
features video, sculptural, photographic and performance works. Oreet
Ashery presents Dancing with Men, a video where she participates,
as a man, in a male-only religious festival. Ana Laura López de la
Torre’s work, Everything is Not All Right, invites viewers
to take the work, a flag, on a protest walk.
Ralf
Obergfell’s
series of photographs portray the elaborate creatures that frequent
the nocturnal London club scene. Together with Tony Hornecker’s
installation
of ‘peep booths’ constructed out of old doors and found materials,
they form the work Beautiful Freaks. Amid a live soundtrack
provided
by Per QX, performers will occupy the booths on Wednesday 24 February
from 3pm. Viewers are invited to take on the role of the voyeur, peeping
through cracks, small openings and keyholes to see a range of
characters. 
Also on 24
February, the Gender & Performance Symposium opens with Franko B’s
sculpture of a swing, I’m Thinking Of You. A succession of
naked volunteers will participate in the work accompanied by specially
composed music.
Franko B and
Oreet Ashery will talk about their work, and then join a panel
discussion
with Ron Athey (performance artist, Pia Arber (performer), Stephen Wood
(poet and stay-at-home dad) and chaired by Dr Claire Pajaczkowska,
Senior
Research Tutor at the RCA.
The Symposium
addresses the relationship between performance art and our understanding
of gender. While sociological and philosophical critiques of gender
are well established, the symposium opens up the question of how gender
can be informed by art or art practice, in particular, the practice
of performance.
Exhibition
open from 22 – 25 February, 11am to 5.30pm daily
Gender & Performance Symposium, 24
February: 2pm - 8.30pm
Welcome
and curators’ tour: 2pm
Franko
B’s installation begins from 2pm
Performances
of work by Tony Hornecker from 3pm
Performed
Readings at 3pm
Masculinity
and Performance talk at 4pm
Artists’
presentations, 6pm-7pm
Panel
discussion, 7pm-8.30pm
Free
Admission
Royal
College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU
Public
information: www.rcasu.com
Tel:
0207 590 4444
Gender&PerformancePressRelease.pdf
Gender and Performance Readings.pdf