ART
Tino Sehgal |
Written 06 September |
Friday 06 February, 11:00Marian Goodman Gallery, 75003 [map]
Tino Sehgal is one of the most critically acclaimed artists to have emerged in the past few years, having developed a radical artistic practice that takes the form of live encounters between people. The common thread throughout Sehgal's work, often referred to as constructed situations, is that they reside only in the space and time they occupy, and in the memory of the work and its reception. Sehgal calls them "staged situations", interactive experiences which involve the viewer in their development. Despite its immaterial character, the artist's work fulfils the conventions of visual art and functions fully within the infrastructure of the art gallery or museum. The work is present during the entire duration of an exhibition, it enters public and private collections and exists over time by being repeated.
Sehgal's new work "This Situation" presents the viewer with a room of actors engaged in discussion of a set of themes dictated by the artist, accompanied by slow motion dance-like actions. When a new viewer enters the experience, the chatter stops and each actor makes the singular announcement: "Welcome to this situation". The actors re-start the discussions, beginning with simple quotes and moving on to more complex conversations until another visitor enters, and the cycle continues.
