FORMS OF IMAGINING 18.07–13.09.14 PROJECT ARTS CENTRE
With artworks and performances by Karl Burke, Dina Danish, Dan Graham, Krõõt Juurak, Christodoulos Panayiotou and Meggy Rustamova Curated by Kate Strain
Charlot1 entered from stage left, and without opening his eyes, he began. The skit itself was not so funny.2 Nor was he, of course.3 But what they admired was his commitment.4 It’s all part of the act – this disgruntled old comic, losing his charm and his patience.5 Hating the audience, exhausted.6 But still here he is 1 A fictional extension of the character of Calvero played by Charlie Chaplin in the critically unacclaimed film Limelight (1952) 2 Unlike the skit played out by Tommy Cooper before he met his fate by heart attack in a scene understood by audiences to be part of the act. 3 The plight of the unfunny comedian – an age old issue which caught out Godfrey Cambridge. Due to portray Idi Amin for a television movie, the 43 year old actor/comedian died on the set of Victory at Entebbe before he could take up the role. Amin later commented that his death on stage was “punishment from God”.
4 Comparable to the commitment of a certain Renato di Paolo who, while playing the role of Judas in a school play, accidentally hanged himself. 5 An equally elderly, but hardly disgruntled old comic, David Burns, met his fate on stage during his performance in 70, Girls, 70. He lost neither his charm nor his patience, dying, as he did, midway through a musical number. 6 Exhausted to the point of no return. Like the stunt man Sailendra Nath Roy whose hair left him dangling and suspended over a 600ft ravine after attempting to zip-line from one side to the other. Unsuccessfully. Needless to say.
– somehow desperate for their applause.7 He taps out his tired routine.8 Stepping forward.9 A hop and a skip. An inadvertent wobble to one side.10 He forgets his footing.11 Dances a little, on tiptoe.12 Stumbles. Looks down.13 Now see here, this part is crucial: he clips the edge of the stage with his heel, loses his balance,14 and collapses into the 7 The applause just wouldn’t stop for Gordon Williams, who died in front of a jubilant crowd that clapped and cheered for 15 minutes before realising the British comedian was dead and not feigning sleep. 8 Tap was just one of the skills of the famous dancer Emma Livry who died when her tutu caught fire on the exposed limelight stage lanterns she pranced so elegantly around. 9 It was one innocent step forward that took the life of ballerina Alexander Money Kyrle – who plummeted from the stage in his attempt to rescue the director, who had slipped up in similar style (though not fatally) seconds before. 10 The kind of wobble Edith Webster may have affected for her role in the play The Drunkard. It was during this play, incidentally, after singing several choruses of Please Don’t Talk About
Me When I’m Gone, that Webster met her own unscripted death, by fatal heart attack. 11 As did the rising star boy-band member Wong Ka Kui, as he traversed a slippery stage, lost his footing, and banged his head into a coma, resulting in death. 12 The lilting tones of Tiptoe Through the Tulips were cut short, when the singer, Tiny Tim, was felled by a heart attack halfway through his performance of the whimsical love ditty. 13 Never look down! Sarah Guyard-Guillot, an aerialist performer with Cirque du Soleil plummeted an estimated 89 feet mid sky-dance. 14 A loss of balance led to the loss of life of the great aerialist and founder of The Flying Wallendas, Karl Wallenda, who fell 121ft and met death on the pavement having attempted to wire-walk the gap between two ten storey towers in Sao Paolo.
orchestra pit.15 Falls right down into the basin of a bass drum.16 The music stops.17 The crowd go into raptures, laughing uncontrollably at the last of his antics.18 And there’s Charlot lounging in the limelight, at the centre of everything. Suddenly unmoving.19 Silence.20 In this one swift21 instant, the drama that until now had 15 The orchestra pit, that treacherous trench, was also the deathbed for Eduard van Beinum and Viktor Sedov, both of whom died having fallen into the noisy abyss. 16 Devon Clifford, the drummer for Vancouver rock band You Say Party! We Say Die! died playing a bass drum. 17 The music stopped when the much adored organist Louis Vierne died while giving his 1,750th organ recital. In place of his playing, the drone of a low ‘E’ rang out across Notre Dame Cathedral, as he lay still as a stone, draped across the keys of his beloved organ. 18 Michel Noël’s death was met with initial disbelief,
as his audience continued to laugh at his jokes before realising what had befallen the befallen. 19 The sudden non-movement of critic and commentator Alexander Woolcott was no immediate cause for alarm. He died while talking on the radio. To an audience that remained completely unaware of anything amiss. 20 The sound of ceasing: Lil Hardin Armstrong collapsed and died at the piano, during a televised memorial concert for her late ex-husband, Louis. 21 Jonathan Swift who himself died in 1745 did not die in public, but was laid out in public immediately after death.
been in the hands22 of the performer is transported into the collective possession23 of the audience. Held together in the thrill of the performer’s last breath,24 they are called abruptly into being. “He’s dead!” Someone exclaims. “Everybody! Stay Calm!” “Somebody call an ambulance!”25 The girl to your 22 Hands caused the death of Joseph Burrus, an amateur magician who failed to untangle his hands from their handcuffs in time to pull off a dangerous, and finally crushing, stunt. 23 The possession, and temptation, of a gun was what killed Johnny Ace. The rhythm and blues recording star challenged himself to a backstage game of Russian Roulette, and lost.
24 Molière’s last breath was a raspy one. He was overwhelmed by a coughing fit while performing in his own play The Hypochondriac. He collapsed and later died, having insisted on completing what he could of his performance. 25 The ambulance arrived too late for Tyrone Power, who suffered a heart attack during the filming of a fencing scene for Solomon and Sheba.
left faints into the arms of her lover.26 The front row of the orchestra stand motionless,27 letting their instruments dangle like handbags.28 The conductor grasps his baton.29 Ushers herd the madding crowd,30 pressing them back into the darkness of the stiles. Full lights.31 All is bright.32 The bass drum into which Charlot has collapsed 26 It was a lover that caused the death of Spade Cooley’s poor adulterous murdered wife. Cooley’s jealousy overtook him, and he killed her. The selfproclaimed King of Western Swing was convicted for the crime, served his time, and returned to the stage upon release. After singing the words “It’s time to live before it’s time to die” he suffered a heart attack and perished, in front of a truly astounded crowd of loyal fans. 27 As motionless as the tragically paralysed Margaret Peg Woffingtons, who was struck down during her part in the play As You Like It. She never regained her health, and died: bedbound and suffering. 28 The principal trumpet player James Tuozzolo didn’t dare let his instrument dangle during his wild and lively recital as part of a New Year’s Eve
concert in 2000. The puffing got to him though, and he died of a heart attack that very evening. 29 Jean Baptiste Lully’s 17th century baton was the instrument of his own death. The conductor injured his foot with the large staff during a Te Deum for the King. His wound became gangrenous and Lully died from the infection that followed. 30 Thomas Hardy died far from the madding crowd in 1928, after having dictated his final poem to his wife on his deathbed. 31 Curtis Mayfield was struck by a lighting scaffold, which paralysed him and eventually caused his death. 32 A not so bright pyrotechnics disaster caused the death of Ty Longley, along with 100 other people who were in the building to see his band Great White perform.
is hauled back up on to the stage. The ushers help, as do some gentlemen from the first and second rows.33 “Keep Calm!” someone shouts. “Is there a doctor in the house?”34 A white (of course it’s white) sheet is pulled from the wings and gently laid over the body.35 A shudder. The lady on your left is paler than powder36 but 33 Vincent La Guardia, conductor of classical music, was tended to by members of the orchestra and front rows of the audience, when he collapsed during a performance of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. It was too late though. 34 The same question was posed by Milton Berle when Harry Parke – the famed comedian – with whom he shared the stage, slumped onto his lap.
35 The failure of a white sheet (in this case, a parachute) led to the end of Rob Harris’ life, when he jumped from a plane to film a Mountain Dew commercial. 36 The pale and polished English stage actor Sir Henry Irving died after being seized by fainting, live on the stage in a performance of Tennyson’s Becket.
her date makes no effort to leave the scene. The group is agog.37 Captivated and buzzing.38 People are glued to the tragedy.39 Enthralled. We locate the drama easily: it is here amidst the crowd; the onlookers have become the action. What separated them from Charlot’s onstage illusion40 has been erased in
37 Agog and aghast were the horrified onlookers that surrounded R Budd Dywer on his last legs. The Pennsylvania state treasurer staged televised suicide moments before being sentenced for a string of charges at a publically attended press conference. 38 The death of Zeki Müren, who captured the hearts of all of Turkey, sent his devoted fans into a state of grief after he passed away during a live performance on stage in Izmir. 39 News-reporter Christine Chubbuck was determined to keep viewers glued to the screen,
when she announced “In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of brining you the latest in blood and guts and in living colour, you are going to see another first – attempted suicide”. She then drew a revolver and shot herself in the head. 40 Illusions were the mainstay of P C Sorcar’s career in magic. He died attempting his widely celebrated Ind-dra-jal trick, but his legacy lives on with his son – also a magician.
one fell swoop by the player’s own demise. Death is in the room. Suddenly it can happen to you too, here in the moment of interruption, when the fall of one consciousness41 urgently awakens another. Kate Strain First published by EROS Press, Issue 5, Death Vol. 1 (Post Funera, Vita) 2014
41 Rene Daumal met a premature fate, reputedly brought about by his early experiments with tetrachloride, which he inhaled in an attempt to experience the state of death without actually dying. Only in the end, he, and everybody else, did actually die.
The Centre For Dying On Stage is a research body that generates new artistic undertakings, anchored to notions around death and the stage. The website archives, collects and collates instances of unexpected deaths that have occurred during moments of performance in the public domain.
www.centrefordyingonstage.com
THE CENTRE FOR DYING ON STAGE #1
Introduction Participatory Form List of Works Dive Bar Programme Biographies
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On the evening of the opening of the exhibition The Centre For Dying On Stage #1, at Project Arts Centre, three people pretended to die. One of them pretended a little too well, and gave some unsuspecting onlookers the fright of their lives. The resulting scene may or may not have involved unsolicited attempts at the Heimlich manoeuvre by various innocent bystanders. In the end, nobody died. Death in public is never pleasant, nor does it inspire passivity in those unfortunate enough to bear witness. So death on the stage is something of a double threat, in that it forces the viewer into an unpleasant, unwarranted, unexpected situation, exorcising them out of the collective passivity that usually overcomes and subdues the audience in attendance at a cultural spectacle. The three pretend deaths on the evening of the opening were the result of a collaboration with the Philadelphia-based curatorial duo Triple Candie. They devised the project in keeping with the legacy of the late, great, James Lee Byars. Their interpretation (replete with the level of artistic licence synonomous with the mischevious pair) of his earlier work, Pretend to Fly, was transformed into the literally deadly Pretend to Die and performed by three compelling actors, who died by laughter, fright, and peanut, respectively. Re-enactment as embodied experience as a mode of engagement continues to fascinate and endure in the world of visual art. The endless search for authenticity in the face of the very everyday-ness of death itself is something that drives and inspires a great deal of practitioners. The group exhibition brought with it the possiblity of staging and re-staging artworks, moments, ideas and gestures, each of which speak of ‘The End’ without ever allowing it to happen, and doing so in the presence of a returning audience with curious and deep commitment. Not to mention some world-class first aid skills, should ever they be required. Kate Strain, Acting Curator of Visual Arts, Project Arts Centre, 2014
THE CENTRE FOR DYING ON STAGE #1
Introduction
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Exhibition view of The Centre For Dying On Stage #1 showing works by (L–R) Meggy Rustamova, Dan Graham, Karl Burke, Dina Danish, Project Arts Centre, 2014
Participatory Form
The Centre for Dying on Stage is a research platform that generates new artistic undertakings anchored to notions of disappearance and performativity. It documents deaths that have occurred in public in performative settings, recording them on a dedicated website. Sudden death during performance points eloquently to the sudden interruption that will forever change the course of everyone’s act. The research platform had its first physical iteration at Project. Curated by Kate Strain, it comprised the work of six artists and the weekly Dive Bar Programme, conceived under the influence of Krõõt Juurak. The curators wished to explore ‘that moment when the viewing body is held in the thrill of a performer’s last breath and thus moved from passivity into action.’ Consistent with this theme, the works had an underlying element of transition, either actual or implied. For example, Meggy Rustamova’s five photographs of barely discernible green images Green black out (2014) were the result of an error during their chemical development, supplanting the artist’s memory of what was being focussed on by the lens in the original moment. Similarly, Dina Danish’s diptych – two framed papers of folded deep red geometric shapes titled Stop, Sun! Continue, Sun! (2010) – allowed for the possibility of one paper fading through exposure to sunlight during the course of the exhibition. This fading event was documented in the form of a dramatic dialogue between the relevant ‘characters’: the Director (that is, the artist), Paper One, Paper Two, and the Sun, as they worked through the various steps involved in the process. The dialogue could be read on the gallery window from the street and was an interesting textual
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THE CENTRE FOR DYING ON STAGE #1
Krõõt Juurak, The Place of the Grave, 7 August 2014, Lecture performance
transposition of the visual. Originating in a theatrical context, Christodoulos Panayiotou’s The End (2009) was visually striking. A framed poster depicted a black theatre backdrop, overlaid with the title and date/time of an event orchestrated by the artist at the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth. The event consisted of a black backdrop occupying the stage of the baroque opera house for an hour, during which period people were invited (at the behest of the announcement poster) to be present. Nothing happened and afterwards the backdrop was folded away for good, the poster being the only record of the event. The absent backdrop brought to mind Malevich’s Black Square (1915) – indeed all of the works making up The Centre For Dying On Stage #1 tended to the monochromatic, and Dina Danish’s dialogue referred in passing to the Russian pioneer of abstraction. The most prominent work in the space was Karl Burke’s Taking a Line (2011), which comprised four identical mild steel right angled frames. These open frames were re-arranged during the exhibition run, sectioning the space and requiring the viewer to negotiate their presence. The piece was arranged as a squared-off enclosure during Dina Danish’s Dive Bar event ‘A Simultaneous Poem’. The audience was seated within
Christodoulos Panayiotou, The End, 2009, poster, Karl Burke, detail of Taking a Line, 2011, 8 units of 8ft × 8ft mild steel Project Arts Centre, 2014
the steel artwork while artist participants acted out, repetitively, a fictional press conference involving Charlie Chaplin, Theo Van Doesburg, Kurt Schwitters and ‘the ridiculously good-looking Letterist International’. An exercise on the possibilities around constructing a performance, this event had an idiosyncratic and absurdist feel to it. Other Dive Bar events were presented by the exhibiting artists and collaborator performers, and included screenings, sound pieces and readings around the theme of interruption and performativity. The first Dive Bar event included a discussion by Kevin Atherton on Dan Graham’s work Performer/Audience/ Mirror (1977), as he experienced it as a live event in the 1970s. This Graham video-documentation piece relayed a performance at de Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam. It involved a 17 minute exploration of the audience-performer relationship, filmed in a narrow white-walled space with a small audience reflected in a mirrored wall, in front of which the artist stood. The camera was first pointed at the audience who were self-consciously put on the spot, before being gradually redirected at the artist standing in front of the mirror as he narrated in detail his posture and movements, and the audience’s reaction to being filmed. The handout accompanying The Centre For Dying On Stage #1 stressed the importance of Graham’s video to the exhibition as a whole, going so far as to say that it was ‘the backdrop against which this exhibition [was] set’. 6/7
Colm Desmond First published in Enclave Review, Autumn 2014
THE CENTRE FOR DYING ON STAGE #1
It is significant that Graham’s work at this time was exploring the boundary between minimalism and conceptual inquiry, addressing temporality, people and space. It was also noticeable that the other work on display was minimal in format or structure, as it was Minimalism as a movement which gave rise to a significant critical discourse on art objects and audience engagement in the 1970s, treated famously in Clement Greenberg’s essay ‘Recentness of Sculpture’ (1967) and Michael Fried’s ‘Art and Objecthood’ (1967) . Both criticised minimalist work for being literal and theatrical, having a kind of stage presence as Fried termed it. For Fried, minimalist art seemed to approach the condition of non-art, almost a new form of theatre, and therefore had become dependent on the viewer bringing a response to it for it to be complete. The work of art had become reduced to being an object in a situation, failing to attain the status of an autonomous work. Greenberg similarly contended that the borderline between art and non-art had been transformed into the frontline of a war waged between theatre and art as such. In contrast, what they termed ‘modernist’ work was considered by both writers to have properly addressed the issue of quality and medium in an aesthetic sense, and was therefore self-contained. It did not require the viewer to respond to its presence. These criticisms were countered at the time by other practitioners, and it is in the tradition of these critics that The Centre For Dying On Stage #1 is itself ‘staged’. Apart from Graham’s experiments with performance, film and architectural sculpture, Robert Morris also addressed the issue of the viewers’ co-presence in his adaptable minimal form works, to which Burke’s pieces at Project Arts Centre bear a certain resemblance. Robert Smithson was particularly critical of Fried and used the forms of minimalism to address scale, entropy and human presence. Much of the work in The Centre For Dying On stage #1, while minimal in format, contained inherent qualities, or propositions of change, of physical, spatial and temporal natures. The first impression of the work was relatively static and appreciation depended somewhat on the explanatory documentation. However, once the pieces’ status as bases of a series of prior theatrical manifestations was established, the exhibition succeeded in extending the boundary of the crossovers between minimal work, performativity, and theatrical engagement with the audience. The exhibition was also marked by a strong sense of interactive openness and showed the potential of continued engagement with Minimalism’s critical legacy.
Dan Graham, Performer/ Audience/ Mirror, 1977, Video documentation, 17'45" Project Arts Centre, 2014
Meggy Rustamova, Green black out, 2014, series of 5 photographs Karl Burke, detail of Taking a Line, 2011, 8 units of 8ft Ă— 8ft mild steel Project Arts Centre, 2014
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List of Works Karl Burke 1. Taking a Line, 2011, Mild steel. 8 units, each unit 8ft × 8ft Dina Danish 2. Stop, Sun! Continue, Sun! , 2010, Oil on paper, sun on paper Dan Graham 3. Performer/Audience/Mirror, 1977, Video documentation, 17'45" Courtesy the artist and de Appel Arts Centre. Videography by Darcy Lange. Meggy Rustamova 4. Green black out, 2014, Series of 5 photographs Christodoulos Panayiotou 5. The End, 2009, Poster Krõõt Juurak 6. The Dive Bar, 2009, as part of The Centre For Dying On Stage #1, was conceived under the influence of Krõõt Juurak.
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Dina Danish, Stop, Sun! Continue, Sun!, 2010, Oil on paper, sun on paper. Performed by Emer Lynch at Project Arts Centre’s window, 2014
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Dive Bar Programme Death in the Afternoon
On this evening, artist Kevin Atherton joined us at the Dive Bar to discuss the work of Dan Graham, as he experienced it, as a live event in 1975. Writer and researcher Sue Rainsford performed a material encounter with Ernest Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon. Also spiritually present at the Dive Bar was the famous French pataphysician René Daumal (reincarnated as a shredder), who presented his lecture On the Nature of the Beyond (facilitated by Rachel-Rose O’Leary, CIRCUMSTANCE allowing). The evening also featured an ongoing performance by Dina Danish: Elizabeth’s Birthday is on the third Thursday of this Month (part of the artist’s tongue-twister series) to the beat of a soundtrack constructed by Emer Lynch. The delicious Hemingway-inspired cocktail Death in the Afternoon was served at the bar. Omnipresent
On this evening, artist and musician Karl Burke re-presented his spatial sound piece Omnipresent. Originally conceived as the soundtrack to the play The Maids, the piece was recomposed as a site specific sculptural installation using sound as its main medium. Operating at a frequency from 20 Hz to 40 Hz, the sound propagates spatially in a very particular manner, forming static physical clusters of intense sound with areas of silence throughout the space of the gallery. Whiskey Sours were served to accompany the piece. The Place of the Grave
On this evening, choreographer Krõõt Juurak presented her lecture The Place of the Grave, in collaboration with Alex Bailey. Somewhere between the deeply engaging and the uncomfortably real, Krõõt’s delivery was that of the stand-offish stand-up tragi-comic. The lecture explored notions of disappearance, expectancy, and the duty of memory with regard to modesty. Cheap Shots of vodka, sugar, coffee and lemon were served especially for the sour-faced.
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Interrupted black out
On this evening, Meggy Rustamova hosted a performative screening in the space of the exhibition. Through her practice she often establishes a reciprocal relationship with her audience, encouraging them to fill in the gaps in her performance, whether through imagination, physical inclination or an impetus towards facilitation. Her stories are formed in the telling. The virgin cocktail Herky-jerky eclipse, was served to sate palates. A Simultaneous Poem
On this evening, Dina Danish presented the second iteration of her press conference A Simultaneous Poem. The conference was conducted by Moira Brady Averill, David Fagan, and James Moran, with assistance from the props department, and reported on the historical overlap between Charlie Chaplin, Theo van Doesburg, Kurt Schwitters, the ridiculously goodlooking Letterist International, and everybody else. Cocktail of the evening was The French 75, served on ice. The Obituary
On this evening, a collective reading of texts by ‘pataphysical writer René Daumal unfolded under the guidance of Rachel-Rose O’Leary, CIRCUMSTANCE allowing, marking the end of the Dive Bar series. The readings were followed by a conversation on interruption and performativity, the conceptual underpinnings of The Centre For Dying On Stage, with Kate Strain and soprano Michelle O’Rourke. Returning guests were also invited to share material over the course of the evening. The Obituary cocktail was served at the bar.
Pretend to Die (After James Lee Byars), a performance exhibition curated by Triple Candie. Hosted by Project Arts Centre on the occasion of the opening of The Centre For Dying On Stage #1, 17 July 2014. Actor Megan Riordan performs a death by laughter
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A Simultaneous Poem, 21 August 2014 A press conference presented by Dina Danish
Omnipresent, 31 July 2014, Whiskey sours served to accompany Karl Burke’s spatial sound installation in the gallery
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Death in the Afternoon, 24 July 2014 Kevin Atherton discusses Dan Graham’s piece Performer/Audience/Mirror, as he experienced it in 1975
Pretend to Die (After James Lee Byars), a performance exhibition curated by Triple Candie. Hosted by Project Arts Centre on the occasion of the opening of The Centre For Dying On Stage #1, 17 July 2014. Actor Tiny James performs a death by fright
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Pretend to Die (After James Lee Byars), a performance exhibition curated by Triple Candie. Hosted by Project Arts Centre on the occasion of the opening of The Centre For Dying On Stage #1, 17 July 2014. Actor Moira Brady Averill performs a death by peanut
Biographies Karl Burke (b. Sligo, Ireland, 1974) lives and works in Dublin. He has presented solo exhibitions at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, 2014; Taking a Line, Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Manorhamilton, 2011; and Method C at King John’s Castle, Limerick City Gallery of Art, 2010. Burke has recently shown at the The MAC, Belfast as part of the two person exhibition with Maud Cotter in The Air They Capture Is Different, 2013 and in group exhibitions including The empty set at Maria Stenfors, London, 2013; Into the Light, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, 2012; Time out of Mind, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2012; Conquested, Temple Bar Galleries + Studios, Dublin, 2011 and Nothing is Impossible at the Mattress Factory, Pittsburg, 2010. Burke also produces music under the name Karl Him and has produced a number of soundtracks for theatre, working with Dublin based companies Loose Canon and Brokentalkers.
Dina Danish (b. Paris, France, 1981) currently resides in Amsterdam. Her work combines conceptual art’s preoccupation with language and structure with an interest in humor, misunderstanding and superstition. Danish’s recent solo exhibitions include Dictated But Not Read at Supplement, London; A Place in The Sun, Nile Sunset Annex, Cairo EG, To Be A Pinball at SpazioA, Italy; Four Friends Fought Furiously For The Phone at De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam, NL; Double Bubble Gum, Doubles Bubble at Galerie Barbara Seiler, Zurich and RePlay: Back in 10 Minutes at SpazioA, Italy. Recently, she performed with de Appel Arts Center at the Stedelijk Museum and performed Kurt Schwitters’ Ursonata at the Cairo Pavilion of the Amsterdam Biennial. Danish has taken part in various artist residencies including the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, Spinola Banna in Italy, AIR Dubai and PiST/// in Istanbul.
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Dan Graham (b. Illinois, US, 1942) lives and works in New York. He has presented solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Castello di Rivoli, Museo d’ Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Holland; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, England; The Renaissance Society, University of Chicago; Kunsthalle, Berne, Switzerland; and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; and has been represented internationally in group exhibitions at Documenta V, VI, VII, IX and X, Kassel, Germany; Art Institute of Chicago; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Ps1, New York; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, among other institutions. In 2009, the first North American retrospective of his work Dan Graham: Beyond was presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, and travelled to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Models and Beyond, Graham’s recent retrospective took place in 2014 at de Pont Museum, Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Krõõt Juurak (b. Tallinn, Estonia, 1981) is a choreographer and performer whose work, which comprises of performances, presentations, texts, workshops and mood shifts, challenges fixed definitions of choreography and performance. She graduated in dance and choreography from ArtEZ, Arnhem in 2003 and obtained an MA in Fine Arts from the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam. She has presented her work in a variety of forms at venues including Juliette Jongma, Amsterdam, 2014; Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam, 2013; Venice Biennale, 2013; Mindaugas Triennial, Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius, 2012; ImPulsTanz, Vienna, 2012; and de Appel Boys School, Amsterdam, 2012.
Christodoulos Panayiotou (b. 1978, Limassol, Cyprus) recently presented solo exhibitions and projects at 56th Venice Biennale, 2015; Spring, Hong Kong, 2014; Kaleidoscope Project Space, Milan 2014; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Casino Luxembourg, 2013; CCA Kitakyushu, 2013; Camera Austria, Graz, 2013; Rodeo, Istanbul, 2012; Centre d’art contemporain de Bretigny, 2012; Museum of Contemporary Art St. Louis, 2012; Museum of Contemporary Art, Leipzig, 2011; and Norrlands Operan, Sweden, 2011. He participated in the 6th and 8th Berlin Biennales, dOCUMENTA (13), 2012, and the Liverpool Biennale, 2012. Colm Desmond holds a BA Fine Art, Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire and MA, Art in the Contemporary World, National College of Art and Design, Dublin. He has exhibited photographic and installation work in solo and group exhibitions, and has contributed writing to Enclave Review, VAI News Sheet and ReCirca.com. As a member of the Aesthetic Seminar Group at Gradcam Dublin Institute of Technology, he contributed to group articles in DIT InPrint Issue 3 and participated in the European Society of Aesthetics 2015 Conference at DIT.
Meggy Rustamova (b. Tbilisi, Georgia, 1985) lives and works in Brussels and Ghent, Belgium. She obtained her MA in Fine Arts at KASK School of Arts in Ghent and also completed a two year post-academic residency programme at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium. Recent solo exhibitions include SHE HE SHE SHE HE at Bureau des Réalités, Brussels; Observations at Beursschouwburg, Brussels; and Videoarbeiten, Kunstraum für Bewegte Ideen, Düsseldorf (all 2015). Selected recent group exhibitions include: The Future of Memory, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, 2015; Out Of Character, CAB Art Center, Brussels, 2014; Festival Belluard Bollwerk International, 2014, Switzerland and Een onvervalste leugen, Veurne, 2014.
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Interrupted black out, 14 August 2014, Performative screening hosted by Meggy Rustamova
The Obituary, 28 August 2014, An interrupted and performed conversation between curator Kate Strain and soprano Michelle O’Rourke
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The Centre For Dying On Stage #1 Karl Burke, Dina Danish, Dan Graham, Krõõt Juurak, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Meggy Rustamova Published as an edition of Forms of Imagining, a series published by Project Press based on the exhibitions program of Project Arts Centre. Dublin, March 2016 ISBN 978-1-872493-55-8 Editor: Kate Strain © The Artists, Writers and Project Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission of the publishers. Text: Kate Strain, Colm Desmond Designed in Ireland by WorkGroup Series Editor: Emer Lynch The Centre For Dying On Stage #1 Karl Burke, Dina Danish, Dan Graham, Krõõt Juurak, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Meggy Rustamova 18 July–13 September 2014 Project Arts Centre, Dublin Acting Curator (2014): Kate Strain Assistant Curator (2014): Emer Lynch Production Manager: Joseph Collins General Manager: Claire O’Neill Artistic Director: Cian O’Brien
Project Press Project Arts Centre 39 East Essex Street Temple Bar Dublin 2 Ireland + 353 (0)1 881 9613 gallery@projectartscentre.ie www.projectartscentre.ie Project Arts Centre is supported by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and Dublin City Council. With warm thanks to Karl Burke, Dina Danish, Dan Graham, Krõõt Juurak, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Meggy Rustamova, Triple Candie, Colm Desmond, Enclave Review, EROS Press, Krist Gruijthuijsen, Marc Hollenstein and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia