Denis Caiozzi, Strawinsky et les Ballets Russes, 2008. Film still. Copyright V.M. Baranovsky
A group show contemporising modernist landmark “The Rite of Spring”
The Paris premiere of this groundbreaking work some 101 years ago is considered the definitive moment of modernism. Diaghilev’s company put out productions whose musical score, choreography and stage design
were equally formative; Stravinsky’s composition for “Sacre” was just as avant-garde as Nijinsky’s modern choreography and Roerich’s eclectic set. The group show “Sacre 101” stages one-on-one encounters with different aspects of the seminal work, interpreted by contemporary artists.
A corridor of paintings by Lucy Stein leads into the show and toward the ex-hilarating video re-construction of the original dance. Dance historian Millicent Hodson and art historian Kenneth Archer restaged a production of “Sacre” in 2008, suddenly bringing to life all those archival sketches, photos and dance notations available until then. But who were these proto-Eurasian Pagans with their turned-in feet and spectacular headgear, sacrificing a virgin? The exoticism, which a century ago expressed society’s urge for escapism amidst increasing industrialisation, would be entirely un-PC today. Eleanor Antin’s “Recollec-tions of My Life with Diaghilev, 1919–1929” (1976–78) scrutinises this. In photographs and faux-memoirs, she inserts a black ballerina into the company, who recalls her celebrated roles as ethnically marked women, like Cleopatra, Pocahontas or a beautiful slave.
Meanwhile, artist Marc Bauer explores Nijinsky’s mental illness in a collection of works on paper and a large wall drawing, reimagining the phenomenal dancer’s days in different sanatoriums and his exchanges with his not-so-secret lover, Diaghilev. One of Nijinsky’s own mask drawings, considered an expression of his bipolar disorder, is on view as well, facing a wall of atmospheric-figurative paintings by Silke Otto-Knapp. It’s hardly surprising that several artists chose to refer to “Sacre’s” costumes and stage, like Julie Verhoeven in a specially commissioned video work “Sweating Greens” (2014). Her practice is grounded between art and fashion and she recasts individual elements of Roerich’s iconic designs in contemporary representation.
The weirdly repressed violence of the ritual in “Sacre du Printemps” is addressed in a work by Marko Luli?, “The Sacrifice” (2013). Luli? explores the aesthetics of power and ritual and the interplay of ideologies and art, culture and architecture. A black-and-white video shows a group of young men performing a troubling choreography in which one is singled out in a vicious turn of group dynamics.
Sacre 101, An Exhibition Based on The Rite of Spring. Featuring artworks by: Marko Luli?, Eleanor Antin, Kenneth Archer, Marc Bauer, Dara Friedman, Millicent Hodson, Karen Kilimnik, Royston Maldoom, Babette Mangolte, Sara Masüger, Vaslav Nijinsky, Silke Otto-Knapp, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Yvonne Rainer, Lucy Stein, Alexis Marguerite Teplin, Julie Verhoeven and Mary Wigman. Migros Museum for contemporary Art. Until May 11, 2014
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