18. Juli 2007, 15-16 Uhr:

 

play 03: Auszug Drama Queens von Michael Elmgreen und Ingar Dragset

 

play: Auszug Drama Queens von Michael Elmgreen und Ingar Dragset

 

 

 

 

 

Drama Queens on stage

Drama Queens von Michael Elmgreen und Ingar Dragset

During the exhibition, a video of the play can be viewed at the LWL State Museum of Art and Cultural History for the duration of the exhibition.

Project: Drama Queens

The construction of the Municipal Theater in Münster between 1954 and 1956 marked the end of the conservative reconstruction policy in the city.

In their work for skulptur projekte münster 07, the Berlin-based artist duo Michael Elmgreen from Denmark and Ingar Dragset from Norway were inspired by this theater’s architecture, which both regard as being visionary, even today. The building provides the setting for their stage piece, a half-hour performance that presents Superstars from the History Modern Sculpture. Although sculptures tend to be static, and hardly anybody thinks there are many parallels between sculpture and theater, these works actually move and even speak in the language of their creators. As little psychological dramas unfold on the black, bare stage, it soon becomes clear that these sculpture superstars are fickle creatures. For in a histrionic manner, they act out their primary characteristic – an intrinsic stubbornness.

After the world premiere on June 16 and the documentation of the piece, the theater will be closed for the summer. The video of the performance will be shown in the foyer of the LWL-Landesmuseum during the exhibition.

Biography

Powerless Structures have, over the past few years, made Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset internationally acclaimed artists. Their works meet the categories of art, architecture and design. In installations and performances, this duo explores and redefines space and its numerous possibilities of definition and function. Their approach is based on Foucault's thesis, that it is the acceptance of certain behavioural patterns, within given structures, and not the structures, themselves, that restricts human action and activity. Elmgreen & Dragset transfer space to new contexts of description, purposefully modifying its functionality, and, therefore, facilitating the re-definition of the familiar. In 2003, the artists set up a Prada Store in the Texas desert, somewhere between Marfa and the hamlet of Valentine. Even though the shop displays the latest autumn collection of this international fashion trademark, the building had neither entrance nor exit, and slowly deteriorated. The Prada project is an example of the artists' works, which often allude to discussions about the White Cube. Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset follow a traditional trend in art, which discusses the premises and reception of art, challenges the site of contemporary art, and finally, in the late 1980s and '90s, led to the criticism of the institutions.

Elmgreen's and Dragset's works could/can be seen in the following exhibitions:

„Protections“ (steirischer herbst 06), Sept-Oct. 2006, Kunsthaus Graz

„Gruppentherapie“, Sept. 2006-Jan. 2007, Museion, Bolzano

„7th East Wing collection – Culture Bound”, Jan. 06-2007, Courtauld Institute of Art, London