Taking Positions presents a set of three performance-based video sculptures. The work draws together and investigates a potent combination of conceptual and aesthetic threads around figuration and abstraction; sculpture, the female body, and performance.

Taking Positions was filmed at Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin, formerly the atelier of Arno Breker—an official state sculptor of the Third Reich. In the lead-up to Kunsthaus Dahlem’s inauguration as a new exhibition venue, six female performers were filmed in the space as they embodied the postures of six of Breker’s sculptures. The statues chosen represent idealised femininity through such mythological figures as Eos, Psyche and Humility. Abstract color animations are combined with footage of the female performers. Influenced by Joseph Albers’ book Interaction of Color (1963), these provide a counter position to the issues figuration raised under the Nazi regime. Three short films are presented on specially designed plinths, embedding moving image in a sculptural mise-en-scène. By staging an interplay between various characteristics of classicism, modernity, and abstraction, this new work formulates relationships between systems of visual thinking, regimes of representation, and performance as a form of activation.

Credits

• Concept & Realization: Lynne Marsh
• Camera : Lynne Marsh & Daniel Sippel
• Camera Assistant: Michael Freudenthaler
• Casting & Choreographer: Emma Waltraud Howes
• Performers: Carolina Hellsgård, Katie Lee Dunbar, Lisa S. Carneiro, Mia Sellmann, Cristina Nyffeler

Exhibition History

• Taking Positions
  2018
  Tintype
  London, UK