Event overview
The Department of Art Public Talks Programme Autumn 2018 welcomes choreographer Alex Baczynski-Jenkins.
Alex Baczynski-Jenkins is a London and Warsaw-based choreographer whose work occurs at the intersection of performance and dance, examining queer politics through ideas of desire, intimacy and love.
A central part of his work is the use of performance as an agent for what he describes as ‘other-worlding’, often examining alienation, affective deficits and lack. He develops ‘vocabularies’ in performances that range from micro-gestures to poems and ‘social dances’, picking apart the everyday practices that emerge in situations such as play and friendship. Often semi-improvisational, his work operates through ‘the pleasure of being set in motion’ and develops into fluid choreographies that see performers ‘orbiting in language’. His 2014 work ‘Us Swerve’ is a strong example of this, featuring performers on rollerblades who move around each other whilst reciting and reformulating lines of poetry. The scripted words, taken from an archive of queer verse, circulate amongst the performers, their physical motion running parallel with moving articulations of desire. A more recent work The tremble, the symptom, the swell and the hole together (Chisenhale Gallery, London, 2017/ Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2017) examines the relationships between affection, distraction, desire and loss in four episodes that each stage an encounter with ‘relationality’. Performed within a minimal set of tiered, octagonal platforms, the episodic format invites the audience to partake in the unfolding of the work, producing a ‘hybrid viewership’.
Alex Baczynski-Jenkins (born 1987, London) lives and works in Warsaw and London. Previous solo exhibitions include: Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw (2018) and Chisenhale Gallery, London (2017). He has also presented work at: Serralves Foundation, Porto; Migros Museum of Contemporary Art, Zurich (both 2018); Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (both 2017); Swiss Institute Contemporary Art, New York; Muzeum Sztuki, ?ód? (both 2016); and Basel Liste (2014).
He is co-founder of feminist and queer project space Kem in Warsaw. Kem have recently realised projects at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (Kem Care, 2017) and are currently on a one-year residency at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art (Three Springs, 2018-2019). He was a fellow at the Home Workspace Program, Beirut (2012-2013). He is recipient of the Arts Foundation Award and Frieze Artist Award (2018).
Image Credit: Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, ‘The tremble part of The tremble, the symptom, the swell and the hole together’ (2017). Produced and commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery, London. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mark Blower
This event is free. No booking is required. All welcome.
Dates & times
Date | Time | Add to calendar |
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5 Dec 2018 | 5:30pm - 7:00pm |
Accessibility
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