Nezaket Ekici, Shahar Marcus, group exhibition, DNA Gallery, Berlin

Nezaket Ekici and Shahar Marcus participating in “SHOOT:About performance” at DNA Berlin.

The exhibition features Kyungwoo Chun, Gary Hill, Elana Katz, Mwangi Hutter, Tanja Ostojic and Mike Steiner.

SHOOT appears as a pure condensation of violence. But according to Chris Burden who was shot in the arm by a rifle, “the violence part was not that important”. The performer conducts a mental experience through his body that turns into a sculpture. An obsolete meaning of “shoot” is to crystallise. Between permanence and impermanence, the art of performance is always paradoxical. In organising an exhibition about performance, DNA (Die Neue Aktionsgalerie) revives its origins and presents the apparent contradictions through the medium of video, documentation material and live performances. What were the initiatives of this artistic expression and how has it evolved with the passing of time?

Per-formance is not in-informance; it is not a matter of shaping objects or bodies into forms, but to going through them. It provokes a self-examination of the art world, as it can be considered as a passage through sculpture, painting, theatre, dance and video, that avoids to be put in concrete categories. What status is being given to the audience by an art which happens once but is viewed in loop? As a series of uncontrolled protocols, performance art is an authentic experience, the pathos of things, in a universe full of dead conventions and artificiality.

From April 30 through  June 12, 2015