Bang Bang Baroque – a Prelude by Emma Waltraud Howes
Curated by Marie Glassl

Opening on Saturday, December 9th, 2023 at 5 p.m

Espace DIAPHANES Zurich
Löwenbräukunst
Limmatstraße 270, 8005 Zurich

The exhibition will present an exclusive video excerpt in preview of Howes’ upcoming full three channel film Bang Bang Baroque that completes a cycle of works currently shown in the artists’ exhibition Language and Other Body Parts at Espace DIAPHANES Berlin.

Bang Bang Baroque explores a conflict between the protests during The Great Sparrow Campaign (which was a part of Mao Zedong’s intention to exterminate sparrows during The Great Leap Forward French) and caricatures of baroque wigs from the 18th century; ‘soft head-banging’, contemporary mannerisms of etiquette and classical gestures of rhetoric (Chironomia).

The original series of sixteen graphite drawings were translated into large inflatable sculptures made from parachute nylon, to be worn by performers who oscillate between psychological and material concepts of “subject” and “object”. The movement scores are based upon the Beauchamp-Feuillet system of dance notation (1700), combined with the aesthetic of an artichoke heart. These drawings act as cartographies to set the stage for soundscapes, choreographies, and encounters to take place.

The full film will premiere at Musée d’art de Joliette, Canada in the frame of Howes’ institutional solo exhibition The Time it Takes , 10 February 2024–12 May 2024.