Foto © John William / Ania Rosinska Luczak / GRAYSC
Performance art in the museum collection
What do performance, stories, and collective engagement mean within the context of a museum collection? What remains when a performance is over? Where exactly is the artwork then?
Paul Kindersley, Ula Sickle, and Sarah & Charles explore these questions in the fourth Artist Talk of COME CLOSER. In their artworks, they each investigate, in their own way, the changing role of sculpture and performance in generating collective experiences within the museum context.
A recurring motif is the exploration of characters and stories within the museum collection. In The Dreamer of the Forest (2024), Paul Kindersley embodies various artworks from the museum collection. Ula Sickle has performers wave a black flag in Relay (2023). Sarah & Charles invite you to take the stage yourself in Puppetry & Puppets (2022). In doing so, these artists delve into the performative potential of the objects within the collection. By reinterpreting these artworks during performances, they invite the audience to actively participate in the stories of the museum and the park.
They also question the relationship between individual and collective action. Kindersley tells the same story in varying collaborations. Sickle explores collective responsibility in waving flags. With Sarah & Charles, the audience chooses the stories they want to tell.
The artworks demonstrate the power of collective engagement in shaping social narratives. The audience is not a passive observer but an active participant. Boundaries blur between maker and spectator. They also challenge the classical ways of museum presentation and experience. The artworks are not static and unchanging: performers and audience are essential to giving them meaning.
Moderator: Sara Weyns
