Swiss choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis examines beauty and the act of viewing in free COIL presentation, FROM A TO B VIA C
Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art
18 Wooster St.
Performance: Wednesday, January 14, free with advance RSVP, 7:00
Installation: January 12-13, free, 12 noon – 6:00 pm
212-352-3101
www.ps122.org/from-a-to-b
www.swissinstitute.net
Swiss choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis once again explores gender identity, body language, concepts of beauty, and the very nature of art and performance in today’s communication-obsessed world in her latest work, From A to B via C, inspired by the fascinating history of Diego Velázquez’s “The Toilet of Venus.” In that painting, which is also known as “Venus at Her Mirror” and “The Rokeby Venus,” Cupid holds up a reflecting glass so his nude, reclining mother, Venus, the goddess of love, can admire her visage. The controversial work, completed by the Spanish painter in 1651, stirred one viewer, Canadian suffragette Mary Richardson, to repeatedly slash it in March 1914; her attack was a very public response to the brutal treatment being given fellow feminist activist Emmeline Parkhurst. “I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history, as a protest against the government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history,” Richardson wrote at the time. “Justice is an element of beauty as much as colour and outline on canvas.” One hundred years after that attack, Bachzetsis’s multimedia performance installation From A to B via C, taking place this week at the Swiss Institute as part of PS122’s tenth annual COIL festival, investigates this strange conjunction of art, protest, and feminism. In the hour-long U.S. premiere, Bachzetsis and Gabriel Schenker, wearing Cosima Gadient’s costumes depicting the inner musculature of the human body, are joined by a naked Anne Pajunen, who holds up a monitor showing a live feed as Bachzetsis reclines on a couch and looks at herself. The Zurich-born Bachzetsis’s previous work includes The Stages of Staging, Bluff, and Mainstream; the installation From A to B via C can be seen January 12 & 13 from 12 noon to 6:00, while the final live performance is scheduled for January 14 at 7:00. Admission is free with advance RSVP.