Basically is an ongoing live project whose exhibition format is a hybrid production space, lounge and schoolyard; a context in which to practice and perform. Nikima Jagudajev’s process-based collaborative practice is concerned with social forms, social relations as spatial relations and how we come together in a fulfilling and considerate way. The Perfomers call this practice re-schooling, or going to school again, as well as coming together and sharing affection. A reconstruction of what so many of us – some more than others – were deprived of as children: the laughter that fills the hallways between classes, the locker decorations and the secrets under the bleachers. Re-schooling requires the contribution of many artistic actors sharing their most passionate selves, weaving threads of relationships and building strong bonds with themselves and others. The performative exhibition begins on August 30 and ends on October 27, 2024 on level 4 of the mumok (Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien).
Image above: Nikima Jagudajev, Basically at Enter Art Fair, with: Matilda Cobanli, Lara Damaso, Nikima Jagudajev and Ezra Fieremans © Julie Nymann
In summer 2024, mumok presented a jointly curated performance festival in cooperation with ImPulsTanz. Contemporary choreographers such as Trajal Harrell and others will not only occupy the gallery level with live performances, but will also work with curators Marianne Dobner and Christine Standfest to select historical film works from the mumok collections that have moved and shaped them in their artistic practice – including current references. The result is a network of historical and contemporary positions – a network of inspirational relationships. The festival thus also addresses the question of how ephemeral art forms can be archived that not only thematize presence, the present and change, but actually embody them.
The performance festival culminates in Nikima Jagudajev’s performative exhibition Basically.
Using the choreography of the game as a framework, performers (Conduit) and visitors (Arrivor) are engaged in an open-ended game. The world-building is aided by a group of artists who create the playground with elements such as live music, food, a deck of trading cards called POWDER, arcane clothing, “crits” – art class crits that turn into an oracle – non-linear dance choreography that folds in on itself, and unplanned time that leaves room for randomness. These elements act as informal invitations to engage in different ways, shifting attention and offering agency and ontological transformation. This mythopoetic world is both serious and playful, full of meaning and full of mods. The experience one has is determined by the formal properties of the games as well as the interaction of different interpretive subjectivities. Performers and visitors share this slippery universe by creating and reshaping the environment; a sociality of difference.
Jagudajev’s works have been shown in solo exhibitions at Bergen Kunsthall (Norway), WIELS (Brussels), Shedhalle (Zurich), Kurimanzutto (Mexico City), Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA PS1 and the Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai) as well as at the Material Art Fair’s Immaterial (Mexico City), 89+ at LUMA/Westbau (Zurich), kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels) and as part of the Marrakech Biennale (Morocco). They were DanceWeb recipients in 2016 and returned in 2017 to teach at ImPulsTanz. Future appearances include an exhibition at Accelerator (Stockholm), Istanbul Biennale 2024 and Dhaka Art Summit (Bangladesh) as well as performances at KAAP’s Dansand! Festival (Ostend) and the Enter Art Fair (Copenhagen).
Jagudajev’s published works include “The Backstreet Boys” as part of Bergen Kunsthall’s Speculative Histories text commission platform (2021) and co-published by Karmaklubb*, “Relations of Unpredictable Encounters” in Movement Research Performance Journal (2017) and “the landscape thinks itself in me” in Asad Raza’s Root Sequence. Mother Tongue (Walther König, 2018).
Curated by Marianne Dobner.
WHEN?
Friday, August 30 – Sunday, October 27, 2024
Opening hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 10 am – 6 pm
WHERE?
Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (mumok)
4th floor
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Vienna
Austria
COST?
Regular: 15,00 EUR
Reduced – students under 27 years: 11.50 EUR
Reduced – senior citizens aged 65 and over or with a senior citizen’s card: 11.50 EUR
Reduced – children and young people under 19: Free admission
