Deborah Schamoni

There is a remarkable disparity between the expectations and the realities of contemporary art production today. It is becoming increasingly difficult to meet the demands of a career as an artist in an ever-expanding, forward-moving art world. Performance art specifically has garnered a significant amount of attention in the recent years, but this has mostly been manifested merely as a perpetuation of the event-based consumption of art by an increasingly expectant audience. As the goals of the KUB Arena program have always been grounded in the exploration of new exhibition formats for unique encounters with contemporary art, the 2014 program will kick off by inviting two ground-breaking artists, Gerry Bibby and Juliette Blightman, to each develop a project that utilizes the institution and its resources to the benefit of their own artistic practice at their own discretion. By creating a kind of ‘residency’ for each artist, the KUB Arena will be activated as a site of production, reflection, and dialogue.

The artistic production of Gerry Bibby is intentionally difficult to pinpoint, but thereby plants its foot in yet uncharted territory. He is known for works that emerge through both self-consciously complicated and calculatingly precise sculptural gestures that are inhabited by beautiful elements of text and carefully choreographed yet wildly haphazard performance. His specific blend of sculpture, poetry, and performance locates Bibby’s practice as an inspiring and inventive redefinition of artistic process – one inscribed with playful subversions and strategic projections of complex cultural references.

Bibby’s recent, and on-going commission with If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be A Part of Your Revolution, an organization based in Amsterdam that works closely with artists and other institutions internationally, prompted him to focus more on his relationship to writing – something that has always been at the root of his practice. Marking a decisive hiatus from his work with sculpture and performance, Bibby will come to Bregenz for a number of months to work on a large manuscript currently in production. During this time, Bibby will use the KUB Arena as a kind of reading and writing room where he will host a number of events with international guests from different fields of cultural production.

Juliette Blightman’s works often unfold in time and space like meditative, phenomenological narratives that - at first glance - may not exist at all. Often extremely biographical in nature, Blightman’s installations, performances, drawings, and films invite her audience on an almost filmic journey through a glossary of subtle gestures. Coming from a background in film, Blightman’s ephemeral work is usually experienced through a heightened awareness of time.  Her fascination with determinate, segmented allotments of time drives her production and ultimately defines her audience’s participation in the work itself. Blightman’s poetic installations usually defy standard exhibition practices and require a specific kind of engagement – effectively implicating the audience in their activation in time and space. Bringing a number of earlier installations together in the KUB Arena, Blightman’s ‘residency’ will also entail the creation of a new performance work in the space.

Curated by Yilmaz Dziewior and Scott Cameron Weaver
Text: Scott Cameron Weaver
Photos: Christian Hinz