Output details

On Dilettantism

Talk and performance: Festival of Dilettantism Halle 14 Leipzig. 2012

Initially, asked to show a piece of work in a group show, On Dilettantism , curated by ACC Galerie Director Frank Motz, it quickly turned into a mini solo show within a group show, with 7 large-scale works of mine showing, including a collaboration with current Turner Prize nominee Laure Prouvost. One new work took up half of the 8,000 square foot venue.

The show moved across two venues in Germany, AAC Galerie, Weimar, and Halle 14 in Leipzig.

In Liepzig a Festival of Dilettantism was curated alongside the show, timed to coincide with their 6-monthly Art weekend. For this I was invited out to do an artist talk, and I was commissioned to make a new performance in response to the Festival.

The performance, (repeated in the Gallery the next day), involved me being put on the bill of a Classical Music Recital, playing a 15 minute Beethoven piece (Moonlight Sonata) on the piano in front of an unsuspecting classical audience, when I know nothing about playing piano, (gaining me an extra, if surprised, audience to my work). A film of the performance has since been shown in V1 Gallery Copenhagen, and Baró Gallery São Paulo, Brazil, and I have been commissioned, and as a result of this performance, to contribute to a festival celebrating 200 years since Wagner’s birth, curated by his great-grand daughter Nike Wagner.

Documentation of the show and Festival was circulated widely by Halle 14 newsletter, and on its own site:

http://www.halle14.org/fileadmin/files/documents/publikationen/halle14_10_klein_einzelseiten.pdf

and a sizable review was written largely about my work following an interview:

http://culturmag.de/litmag/bericht-vom-leipziger-festival-der-dilettanten/61102