| Curator | Joel Valabrega |
| Artists | Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz |
| Technical support by | noc.turn asbl |
| Credits | Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean thanks all donors and sponsors and particularly the Italian Embassy and its partners for their exceptional support, in the framework of the Italian Contemporary Art Day. |
| Media partners |
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Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, still from "Moving Backwards", 2019, Choreography/performance: Julie Cunningham, Werner Hirsch, Latifa La bissi, Marbles Jumbo Radio, Nach
Mudam Performance Season
The Illusion of the End
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Mudam Performance Season: The Illusion of the End is a two-week exhibition devoted to performance in contemporary art. The exhibition sees the ground floor of the museum play host to a series of new live performances by artists from Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia and Switzerland who are gaining international critical acclaim.
The programme features contributions by Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz; Jacopo Jenna (b.1980, Florence); Nicholas Grafia (b. 1990, Angeles City, Philippines) and Mikołaj Sobczak (b. 1989, Poznań, Poland); and Vasya Run (b. 2014, Moscow). These artists are redefining the boundaries between theatre, dance and performance, drawing upon the multiple languages and forms of expression.
Titled after an essay by the influential French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, The Illusion of the End takes as its starting point the ‘fatal strategies of time’ that shape our ways of thinking about history and its imagined end.
Conceived in response to our present moment, a situation in which no clear resolution appears in sight, The Illusion of the End presents works that have been shaped by the continuous political and cultural upheavals of recent years, which have changed our collective and individual perceptions of time. As such, a perception of linear time is challenged by a notion that time is endlessly looping, according to our emotional, psychological and existential needs. The works in this programme raise questions about a collective sense of alienation and detachment, our futures and the possibility of radical change.
Programme of performances
Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz
Ongoing Performance with Arantxa Martinez and Renen Itzhaki
Pauline Boudry’s and Renate Lorenz’s installation Moving Backwards (2019) is presented in Mudam’s East Gallery. Starting with the feeling of being propelled by recent reactionary backlashes, Moving Backwards explores modes of resistance, combining postmodern choreography and urban dance with guerrilla techniques and elements of queer underground culture. The installation brings together video, kinetic sculpture and performance, which will be presented both as live acts and as choreography on film.
Jacopo Jenna
Module 1
Module 2
Module 3
If, If, If, Then (Expanded version)
If, If, If, Then (Expanded version) (2021) is a choreographic work by Jacopo Jenna performed by three dancers, with the audience seated in a circle all around the stage. Beyond choreographed action, Jenna sees movement as an abstract form of observation, whereby contemporary dance is approached as a direct response to its immediate surroundings.
Vasya Run
Solo 1
Solo 2
Stay here – you are the main act (2021)
The performance premiered at Mudam combines text, gestures, sound and costume to create a complex and symbolically charged work exploring male-dominated street subcultures and the anxieties of young people. Created over an extended rehearsal period, four young men from Moscow with no background in the performing arts undergo an intensive programme designed to address their experiences of anxiety whilst exploring the boundaries of self-awareness and introspection.
Nicholas Grafia & Mikołaj Sobczak
Rooms
Ghosts and phantoms are ostensibly able to traverse time and space, cross through impenetrable walls and step into other dimensions. Firmly planted beyond the boundaries of logic and rationality, Nicholas Grafia and Mikołaj Sobczak, have been possessed over and over by various entities who tell intertwined stories of exclusion and injustice. Some of the themes addressed are sweeping in nature, stemming from global history and contemporary political events; or geographically localised around the particular narratives of Filipino myths, or Slavic folk tales.