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In the framework of the exhibition: Xanti Schawinsky: Play, Life, Illusion — a Retrospective

In English

Fee: 10€/person 

Free for Students/Kulturpass

Booking required:

mudam.com/rsvp-mudam-talk   

t +352 453785-531

Xanti Schawinsky’s stage work between the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College 

With Sigrid Pawelke, Raphael Gygax (curator of the exhibition Xanti Schawinsky: Play, Life, Illusion – a Retrospective + Monster Chetwynd: Xanti Shenanigans) and Torsten Blume (editor of the publication Xanti Schawinsky. Play, Life, Illusion)

Programme

18:00 – 18:30: Guided tour ‘The curator’s highlights’ with Raphael Gygax (in the galleries -1)

18:30 – 19:00: Keynote lecture by Sigrid Pawelke (Auditorium)

19:00 – 19:30: Conversation between Sigrid Pawelke and Torsten Blume moderated by Raphael Gygax (Auditorium)

19:30 – 20:00: Q&A with the public (Auditorium)

To understand the multidisciplinary work of Xanti Schawinsky, it is essential to take a closer look at his stage work, which is still relevant today: the spectodrama Play Life Illusion, developed at Black Mountain College in 1936 was the world’s first multimedia play, a good thirty years ahead of its time, before the legendary 9 Evenings: theater end engeneering at New York’s Armory in 1966.

In the early 1920s, Xanti Schawinsky arrived at the innovative German Bauhaus. With his multidisciplinary talents in the visual arts, performing arts, music and sports, he quickly played an important role, creating his first stage productions. Then, in the 1930s, he joined the Black Mountain College, where he was able to develop one of the first multimedia stage works ever. Spectodrama is a purely visual theater that explores concepts of optics, acoustics, construction and technology.

To imagine his most innovative stage work, an excerpt from the audiovisual slide show reconstructed by researcher Eva Diaz will be shown along with video interviews with former students of Black Mountain College conducted by Sigrid Pawelke in 2010, which help to create a more vivid and alive understanding of his work.

Biographies

Sigrid Pawelke, Ph. D. is a German curator and performance and art historian, currently teaching at the School of visual arts ESÄ Tourcoing, France. Pawelke has come to specialise in art projects in the urban realm and the ecological sphere. She worked at PS1 Center of Contemporary Art in New York, the Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella, the Beirut Street Festival, the Nuit Blanche in Paris and the Manifesta Biennial in Marseille. Pawelke is especially interested in the social and ecological relevance of her projects and interventions. She collaborates with artists such as Jochen Gerz, Lucy, Jorge Orta and Michelangelo Pistoletto among others. She has been teaching the body in arts and society, performance in theory and practice at the Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III, Paris VIII and Parsons Paris and art history at the School of Visual Arts in Aix-en-Provence. As a Bauhaus and Black Mountain specialist, she publishes and is active internationally, and regularly gives talks and performance workshops at institutions such as the Centre Pompidou Paris, the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, the Bauhaus Dessau, Ca Foscari University Venice and PRATT Institute New York. In 2019 the interdisciplinary project UNLIMITED BODIESco-designed together with choreographer Dimitri Chamblas, was part of PERFORMA 19 biennial in New York.

Dr. Raphael Gygax (1980) is an art historian, curator and writer based in Locarno, Switzerland. He studied Art History, Film and Drama Studies at the Universities of Bern and Zurich. From 2003–19 he was Curator at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich where he curated numerous exhibitions and was Head of Publications. From 2019–23 he was Head of the Bachelor Fine Arts – the largest programme for the education of artists in Switzerland with over 180 students – and Deputy Director Department Fine Arts at the University of the Arts in Zurich. In 2023, he curated the annual exhibition programme of Museo Casa Rusca in Locarno. In addition, in 2023 he became ART on THE MART’s curator of digital art (2024–25, Chicago), the largest permanent digital art projection in the world. In 2024, he was also appointed Curator-at-Large at the Kunsthaus Zurich. As an independent curator, organising exhibitions a.o. in Zurich, London, Paris, Luxembourg, Locarno and New York, he has assumed teaching positions at different universities and is on the board of several institutions, including the advisory board of the Kunsthalle Stavanger, Norway. He writes regularly for several catalogues and art magazines, including frieze magazine. From 2013–15 he was the curatorial advisor for the sections Focus and Live of Frieze Art Fair London and New York and from 2016–17 the Curator for Frieze Projects, the non-profit programme of artist commissions of Frieze Art Fair, in London. In 2016 he was named as one of the 20 most influential young curators in Europe.

Torsten Blume is a research and artistic associate of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. He works as a curator, scenographer and choreographer. Since 2007 he has been working on the project Play Bauhaus which aims to establish ‘Bauhaus Stage’ as a forum for experimentation through dance and movement installations, workshops, texts and exhibitions. He is the editor of the publication Xanti Schawinsky. Play, Life, Illusion, a retrospective in book form that refers to the title of a performance which Xanti Schawinsky developed in 1936 with students at Black Mountain College. The volume assembles autobiographical texts and letters regarding the life’s work of the multimedia artist and designer.