The eccentric British performance artist brought her “Free Energy Workshop” to Antwerp at the beginning of this month \u2014 and it was quite the spectacle.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66235,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[10718,5586,10719,10720,1673,10721],"class_list":["post-66194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-experience-traps","tag-marvin-gaye-chetwynd","tag-middelheim-museum","tag-monster-chetwynd","tag-performance-art","tag-spartacus"],"acf":{"legacy":false,"main_category":false,"hero_title":"","subtitle":"The eccentric British performance artist brought her \"Free Energy Workshop\" to Antwerp at the beginning of this month \u2014 and it was quite the spectacle.","hero":{"video":false,"image":false,"header_color":"black","overlay_color":"","overlay_text_color":"black"},"teasers":{"video":false,"image":false,"width":"4","proportion":"default"},"related_articles":[68590,68594,68588],"next_article":[68590],"content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":"Still from TateShots video directed and edited by Joe Campbell and Oscar Oldershaw"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"
If you don\u2019t know Monster Chetwynd by name, to be honest I don\u2019t blame you. Born Alaila, she grew up as Lali, morphed into Spartacus aged 33, became Marvin Gaye until April this year \u2014 and now she\u2019s Monster. \u201cI\u2019m pleased with the new name,\u201d she tells me. \u201cI suddenly became this engulfing, monstrous blob that meets people and engulfs them, so I think it really suits me.\u201d Despite her numerous transformations, Monster\u2019s not a shape-shifter, but arguably the most revered British performance artist of our time. She\u2019s been Turner Prize nominated, and her works have been permanently housed by the Tate, Saatchi and the British Council to name but three. When I meet her, she\u2019s dressed in a makeshift tin-foil bikini and gasping for air and water after what can only be described as a energetic and thoroughly erratic performance in the middle of Antwerp\u2019s Central Station.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about energy,\u201d she explains \u2014 the piece, that is. \u201cI worked out a really elaborate performance as a way of sort of disarming people, of tricking them into having a discussion about Green politics and alternative energy sources.\u201d This trickery harks back to 2011, when\u00a0Free Energy Workshop\u00a0<\/i>was first conceived for the Hayward Gallery. It\u2019s now been revisited and revised as part of\u00a0Experience Traps,\u00a0<\/i>a collaborative exhibition at Antwerp\u2019s Middelheim Museum. Like most of Chetwynd\u2019s work, it\u2019s WTF with a side of fun that leaves viewers \u2014 or rather participants \u2014 either entirely perplexed and uncomfortable, or wholeheartedly immersed. I found myself the latter, as I thumbed through a photocopied booklet about futuristic wind turbines, my reading routinely interspersed by mechanical ballet dancers, live music and a (very good) karaoke-esque rendition of Danish classic\u00a0Vi Kan Ikke Leve Alene<\/i>\u00a0by a 6ft-something Adam Christensen wearing hot pink stilettos.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery":false,"settings":{"height":"50","images_to_show":"5","caption":"Photos of the performance by Tom Cornille, courtesy of Middelheim Museum, Antwerp."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"
So where\u2019s the link? \u201cFun gives you energy,\u201d Chetwynd elaborates. \u201cYou know when you go out dancing or when someone tells a joke and you get naturally energised \u2014 no one really thinks of that kind of quantifiable energy.\u201d It\u2019s clear Chetwynd is genuinely enlivened by the prospect of green energy and she just wants to get people on her side. \u201cPeople\u00a0still<\/i>\u00a0don\u2019t know about it!\u201d she laments, and she\u2019s right \u2014 I\u2019ve never even heard of half of the futuristic-looking inventions printed in her hand-out. \u201cThe people who are interested in alternative energy still aren\u2019t able to get solar panels so easily \u2014 people are still using\u00a0car batteries<\/i>!\u201d she exclaims. \u201cThis is real kind of DIY \u2014 like Mad Max-ish, botched together, hands-on making. It\u2019s quite un-sexy and still really relevant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even if immersive performance workshops aren\u2019t your thing, Chetwynd\u2019s intentions are honourable and her enthusiasm is contagious. \u201cDo you even know about Tesla?\u201d she asks excitedly. Chetwynd wants everyone to know about Nikola Tesla. \u201cHe\u2019s egocentric and wonderful, and he was in love with a dove, did you know!? He\u2019s maybe only known for the inventions that were gloriously out of reach, but Tesla did also make things that worked.\u201d And even if Chetwynd\u2019s vigor isn\u2019t something shared by the general public, it\u2019s emphasised by her team of performers, half of whom were part of the original work back in 2011. \u201cIt felt amazing that when I rang round everyone, they all wanted to do it,\u201d she explains. \u201cAnd there are some new additions too \u2014 who I met yesterday \u2014 and they\u2019re great.\u201d It\u2019s something that has always characterised Chetwynd\u2019s work: an overwhelming sense of fun and energy akin to being part of a school play or dressing up for a costume party. That\u2019s not to say that Chetwynd\u2019s work is amateur, but her tin foil, papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9, face-paint dreamlands conjure a sense of childish glee in anyone who\u2019s open-minded enough to give in to them.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":"Monster Chetwynd for Frieze The Cell Group (Episode Two), 2016, performance documentation, Bergen Assembly. Courtesy: Bergen Assembly.\r\n\r\n"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"
But, along with her new name, Chetwynd\u2019s got new projects on the horizon \u2014 many of them film-based. \u201cIt\u2019s less tiring than dancing around!\u201d she admits. She\u2019s also giving life to many of her old props \u2014 bits of \u2018toxic skin\u2019 made from rubber, for example \u2014 by mounting them on wooden panels. \u201cIt\u2019s been a sort of breakthrough,\u201d she explains. \u201cA lot of curators have been like, \u2018Oh my god, she\u2019s put them on a panel!\u2019 Now they know how to handle them.\u201d The folding house Chetwynd made for\u00a0Free Energy Workshop\u00a0<\/i>will also be on display at Middelheim Museum for the next ten years or so, and she\u2019ll be performing a brand new work,\u00a0Pomegranate Promenade<\/em>\u00a0in the park in August. She\u2019s also got a flood of international commissions and tells me she\u2019ll be gracing us Berliners with her presence at Nele Heinevetter\u2019s art space,\u00a0Tropez<\/a>, at Sommerbad Humboldthain later this summer. It\u2019s an apt time, it seems, for Chetwynd\u2019s beastly name change. \u201cThe monster is engulfing the world,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m going to eat the world.\u201d<\/p>\n