—Performer, 2013

HD video, b/w, sound, 12’28”
(a performance of undetermined duration can occasionally accompany the video projection)

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Performer departs from absurdity to ironically discuss some of the problems around the multiple attempts to ‘museify’ performance works. It tries to analyze the difficulties of submitting intentionally dematerialized and ephemeral projects to the logics of art market and conservation rules, especially when these are applied to works that were originally thought to transgress those specific logics. Stored as one more work of art, and registered with the rest of ‘objects’ in the Museum Collection storage areas -Sculpture Section-, a performer spends their time reflecting and reading about some paradoxes that surround contemporary artistic practice. We are invited to rethink the apparently incoherent and contradictory circumstances that led them to end up there by observing the situation, and tracking their thoughts.
As an artistic project, the work Performer can leave on loan to be exhibited at other art centers or museums. In these cases, the video can be complemented with a reenactment of the performance that had hypothetically been acquired by the museum in which our performer has been catalogued. The action presents the same performer that stars in the video, walking through the audience that watches the projection of the film. While strolling around them, the performer selects different viewers and chooses either to give them a card or whisper in their ears. In both cases, two different but equally ambiguous sentences can be performed: “the performance is me”, “the performance is you”; sentences that are activated in their interaction with the public.
This project, filmed in the storage spaces of Artium museum's collection in Vitoria, was produced by Consonni.