Part of the project serial ›Performative Democracies‹ by Joanna Warsza for the Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig
Alexandra Pirici’s projects charmingly challenge the politics of remembrance and the ontology of the city monuments. In her native Bucharest, together with other performers, she replicated the equestrian statue of Carol I and choreographically rebuilt the Ceausescu’s Palace – the seat of the Romanian Parliament. Invited to Leipzig, she takes a close look at the Völkerschlachtdenkmal and proposes a critical domestication of the “Four German Virtues”. The sculptural performances re-contextualise and disarm the silent and stark monumentality. By producing a conflict in terms of scale, by embracing weakness and exhaustion, and by disarming the poignant political iconography Pirici plays out the new ‘human size’ readings of the place.
Alexandra Pirici, born in 1982, lives and works in Bucharest, Romania. Together with Manuel Pelmuş, she represented Romania at the 55th Venice Biennale with the acclaimed project ‘An Immaterial Retrospective of the Venice Biennale’, in which the history of a selection of exhibitions in Venice was performed by a group of people. Pirici has a background in choreography and performing arts, but works across different media, including film and music. Her work has been presented at, among others: Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin; Tanzquartier Vienna; Temps d’Images Festival, Lisbon.
Joanna Warsza is an independent curator for performing, visual arts, and architecture. She has curated the Georgian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale and was associate curator at the 7th Berlin Biennale. Warsza lives and works in Berlin and Warsaw.
Performers: Elsa Artmann, Ira Nimsdorf, Florian Schurz, Paul Striegel
›Performative Democracy‹ is a part of Responsive Subjects, a project in which the Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig (GfZK) collaborates with James Langdon (Birmingham), Joanna Warsza (Warsaw/Berlin) and Kateřina Šedá (Brno).
With kind support of the Friends of the Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig.
