Maja Bekan: P for Performance—All about us

P for Performance: All about us is the first comprehensive solo exhibition by the artist Maja Bekan in Germany. The project is one of a series of exhibitions on diverse performative practices at the Kunstverein; it encompasses all of Bekan’s works to date, conceived since 2011 as a continuous series under the collective title P for Performance. Bekan is also developing a new performance and film production that stages dialogue and exchange between visual artists and women working at a nuclear facility, the European Nuclear Security Training Centre (EUSECTRA) at the Joint Research Centre in Karlsruhe.

Maja Bekan works with the idea of community as an artistic format, and with the potential of collectivity to effect social change. Her participative approach has given rise to long-range projects involving social groupings whose modes of togetherness she interrogates under the concept of “collective intimacy”.
Many of the participants in Bekan’s projects are women who stand up for themselves in precarious situations. Self-organisation and self-empowerment are key concepts in her artistic practice, as are caring and solidarity. A distinctive aspect of her collective work is the decision to use performance (and dance) as a rhythmic form in order to link participants with one another. Their experiences are shared with a wider audience through stage sets and video, audio or text installations.

Throughout the whole building, Maja Bekan is restaging all projects from P for Performance. The work Troublemakers (Hold it Together (We Have Each Other)) (2020/2021) was produced during the Covid-19 pandemic, and established contacts between various women in New York City in order to virtually discuss issues related to connectedness in spite of physical distance, as well as social structures and friendships in times of crisis. In a later live performance, the participants slipped into the roles of so-called “troublemakers”: women who suffer social exclusion as a consequence of their exceptional lifestyles. For her latest project, Throw Like a Girl (2022), Bekan cast artists and women from the military who reflected side by side on how new spaces for emancipation can evolve precisely in moments of conflict.

The prominently staged mixed media installation What if we started making less and reusing more? (since 2007, with Gunndís Ýr Finnbogadóttir) invites visitors to become active performers of the work, to reflect and playfully interact. It is conceived as an ongoing archive and functions as an appendix to Maja Bekan’s collaborative projects. Through presentation panels, Bekan and Finnbogadóttir share texts and production notes that have inspired their practices and emerged from years of shared conversations. Here, Bekan shows how agitation, doubt and procrastination function as crucial elements in the creative process, as do wit and self-irony, and how they help to maintain lightness and foster enthusiasm about one’s own activities.

Curated by Anja Casser.

Programme
Friday, May 12, 2023, 6pm
Artist talk with Maja Bekan

Saturday, May 13, 2023, 7pm
Throw Like a Girl
Rehearsal (constructed situation)
With: Gabriela Dávalos Aray, Darly Benneker, Zosia Nowakowska, Claudia Redout, Amy Son

Save your Wednesdays!
Activating the installation What if we started making less and reusing more?
Each Wednesday, 6pm