|
[Introduction] |
4. Y Ty - The House
The most striking architectural feature of Cardiff, as of many other Welsh towns, is the extent of its terraced houses, which crawl like stony snakes up and down its many streets. On one of these streets, a short walk away from the gentrified city centre in a rougher part of the town, stands 26 Moira Place. Initially there is nothing remarkable about this house: black-and-white pebble-dash exterior, peeling black paint on windows and doors, it looks undistinguishable from its neighbours. Only a small brass plate engraved with the word trace: above the doorbell hints at the house's hidden identity. Here, in the middle of a residential area in close proximity to the city's art college, in October 2000 André Stitt opened trace: installaction artspace, housed in the front room of what is still his home. Under the curatorship of Stitt, himself one of Europe's foremost performance artists, trace:'s small living-room gallery has since established itself as an internationally renowned art space and the only venue in Britain that focuses exclusively on time-based art and work that emerges from this field - performance, video, sonic, interactive and installation arts. Every month, a different artist presents a live performance, with the 'trace' elements of their activity exhibited as an installation on the following weekends. The first challenge to artists is thus to experiment with their own practice in the focused set-up of a single-artist show, the second is to consider how the residue of their work may continue to exist and evolve beyond the performance. The combination of performance and installation is hereby programmatic: 'Within absence there may be a material counterpoint to presence. It is through trace and memory than we find absence revealed, and both of these are core properties of experience and, though partially intangible, possess strong assurances of ontological security in existence.' (Roddy Hunter as quoted in trace:'s catalogue for its first season). In its first five years trace: hosted 43 artists from 22 countries in 41 events - among them some of the doyens of performance art, such as Alastair MacLennan, Stuart Brisley, Zbigniew Warpechowski, Jerzy Beres and Cosey Fanni Tutti, as well as emerging artists, including Jessica Buege, Julie Andrée-T. and Eve Dent. The programme has afforded an unparalleled insight into the richness of current performance art practice, an insight previously only available through the spectacularized format of the festival. trace: resists such spectacularisation. Its programme is based on Stitt's extensive networks, developed through making performance work for over 25 years in many locations in the world. At the heart of trace: is the idea of encounter that is so central to much performance art, an art practised by individual artists yet deeply attracted to ideas of community and exchange. trace: has explored such encounters also through formalized international exchanges with other spaces and festivals devoted to performance art (e.g., with Le Lieu in Québec (Rhwnt 2003/4) and with the Dadao Live Art Festival Beijing (2004 and 2005)). Even among these artist-led initiatives, trace: seems unique. It presents a different model for 'housing' performance art, where such art is made public in a private space, and its liveness quite literally penetrates the realm of everyday life. Fellow performance artist Julie Bacon, who came to trace:'s opening performance by Alastair MacLennan, describes the impact the venue's domestic situation has on its visitors: 'And so, there was something immediately engaging about being present (in the psycho-geographic sense) in one of a dense, sprawling mass of residences, waiting to see a performance in an ordinary house […] directly opposite an abandoned (!) pub. The large group of people that had come along were mostly bustling in the kitchen (like at the best of parties), having a cup of tea, juice and crisps […]. The situation did not suffer pretension, as the domestic setting seemed to make for a diminished sense of territory and heightened sense of responsibility. By this I mean that the occasional sophistry of art audience which allows a kind of blasé knowing before the event, was unsettled, - the behavioural codes are mixed. I felt a recognition of a shared context and overlapping reality, which many current art projects aspire to; this is more than a matter of delivering opinion; in the intimate realm of another one senses ones own gestures and accordingly responsibility. It is this presence that underlies Trace. […]' (Bacon 2001).
Julie Andrée T., Unexpected Thought, 2002; Jimmie Durham, Under Construction, 2003; Brian Connolly, Initiate, 2002; Photos: trace. And to those of us who pay a monthly visit to trace:, the remains of past performances are always present. There is the perfect circle that Morgan O'Hara drew on the back wall by swirling her arm around her body; there is the time capsule that Brian Connolly filled with the remnants of his audience's actions and buried in the floor - the one since painted over, the other now concreted over, but both still there, physically and in our memory. Each performance resonates with those that have been and those that are yet to come: the line that Julie Andrée-T. strung between the side walls pre-echoed a similar line in Zbiegniew Warpechowski's performance. Two artists of different nationalities, genders, generations, aesthetics and politics become part of the same history, a history of performance that is being created as a series of performative explorations of the same limited space. Literature cited:
[Introduction] [Y Maes/The Field] [Y Tir/The Land] [Y Ddinas / The City] [Y Ty / The House] [Postscript]
|
