ALICE ANDERSON ‘Itinéraires d’un corps’, 2017 Performative sculptures series following Anderson’s research on repetitive movement and the spiritual act of weaving in the Sierra Nevada, Colombia 150 x 150 cm, metallic thread Press-release ALICE ANDERSON ‘Itinéraires d’un corps’ | Spiritual Machines 12.01.18 > 17.03.18 Opening Thursday 11 January 5 pm - 8 pm La Patinoire Royale / Galerie Valérie Bach [email protected] / Tel: +32 (0)2 533 03 90 www.lapatinoireroyale.com - www.galerievaleriebach.com Anglo-French sculptor and performer Alice Anderson lives and works in London. Born in 1972, she studied at Goldsmiths College of Art in London and at Beaux-Arts Paris. Her practice is above all performative. Her performances and sculptures have been presented at Whitechapel Gallery in 2012, at the 55th Venice Biennial in 2013, at the Wellcome Collection in London in 2014, at Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton Paris in 2015, at the Saatchi Gallery in 2016 and Centre Pompidou in 2017. Since childhood, Alice has had an extreme sensitivity to her environment: to light, certain colours, sound, vibratory movement and waves transmitted by different materials. She relates to the other through objects and exists in total visual, auditory, olfactory and corporeal relation to objects that surround her. In her experience, objects not only have practical uses, but intervene in Anderson’s learning processes and relationship to the world. ‘Spiritual Machines’, 2017 Totems and statuettes series made out of different type of machines and objects. Wall programmer, multi USB plugs, Blackberry. 20 x 10 cm metallic thread The great questions that the digitalisation of man’s relationship with the world and parallel advances in artificial intelligence bring about, lead us to consider essential questions about our primitive interactions within the physical world. Anderson’s research has directed her to certain ancestral cultures where primal senses are clearly evoked and celebrated. Such is the case amongst the Arhuacos tribe and its relationship to nature and the universe around us. Alice Anderson has the privilege of having established a relationship of reflection and exchange with natives of the Arhuacos community on their ancestral rites, in particular, on the spiritual act of weaving. It is during rites and dances in the heart of nature in the Sierra Nevada, the sacred mountain of Colombia, that one is able to assess and evaluate all dimensions of the great upheavals of our civilisation. Alice Anderson’s ritual performances generate pastel and thread drawings, corten steel sculptures and wire sculptures. Several of these bodies of work will be presented in the various spaces of the exhibition. Presentation of the exhibition ITINERAIRES D’UN CORPS Presented in the great nave of the Patinoire, the sculptural installation ‘Bodily Itineraries’ proposes an ‘abstraction in space’: a temple composed of square elements of variable dimensions formed through performance using different speeds, movements and postures of the body. These performative sculptures were commissioned for the venue and will be presented for the first time, in line with site specific inter- ventions that Anderson performed at the Freud Museum in London, in the Eiffel Historic building or at Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton in Paris. It is around neutral shapes, here the square, and through perfor- mances in the spaces of La Patinoire Royale / Galerie Valérie Bach, ‘Itinéraires d’un corps’, 2017 Performative sculptures series following Ander- that Anderson’s repetitive actions generate a science of space and son’s research on repetitive movement and the the body. These geometric forms create an « alphabet of move- spiritual act of weaving in the Sierra Nevada, Colombia. 50 x 50 cm, wire. ment » which relates to the body, the world and weaving, a funda- mental spiritual act for the Arhuacos and Kogi communities who philosophise that to live is to « weave one’s life ». Anderson’s squares are like sacred surfaces in which time and space are inscribed through the meditative movements of her performances. They are a representation of a world whose perimeters correspond to cardinal points and the sculptures’ two faces refer to the opposing forces of the universe: light and shadow, feminine and masculine, high and low, positive and negative. Being at the same time maps but also calendars and mnemonic or analogic supports, these abstract forms confront us with a mental, spiritual and material reading, leading us to connect many levels: physical, symbolic, visible, invisible, enigmatic and infinitely big or infinitely small. SPIRITUAL MACHINES ‘Spiritual Machines’ is the title that brings together Alice Anderson’s object-sculptures (totems, masks and statuettes) to be exhibited in the glass-roofed space of Galerie Valerie Bach. ‘SPIRITUAL MACHINES’ refers to the work of scientist Ray Kurzweil’s text, ‘The Age of Spiritual Machines’, (2005) in which the author announced the future of artificial intelligence and of advanced technologies which are enabling humanity to transcend its biological limits. Through her practice, Anderson proposes to go back to primal and ritualistic gestures that, in a different way, give the power of life and spirituality to objects. Without nostalgia, Alice Anderson questions a time in which the very nature of what it is to be human is simul- taneously enriched and challenged. Through her practice, the artist creates new physical relationships to objects and spaces, using a weaving technique that she has developed over many years with copper coloured wire. Copper here symbolises the connectivity of the digital world and becomes the medium that allows Anderson to ‘memorise’ objects and architecture. The artist speaks of ‘memorisation’ because the process is a way of drawing memory circuits in a physical way around objects. This dance around objects transports her to a meditative state (which is generated by rhythm and repetition of movement) identical to true trance states. Anderson’s practice is a search for alternatives processes that contrast with the externalisation of memory induced by digital processes. Amongst other examples, one may think of the systematic act of photographing with a mobile phone, an act that often replaces an attempt to remember or to simply to live the experience or the event for oneself. When Anderson feels that an object is becoming obsolete or may disappear in the course of life, she memorises this with thread before it happens. Alice Anderson - Pulse Drawing, 2017 Alice Anderson - Pulse Painting, 2017 PULSE DRAWINGS / PULSE PAINTINGS In addition to sculptures, Alice Anderson’s performances also give rise to a series of drawings resulting from a repetitive action that the artist performs simultaneously on two horizontal surfaces by swinging her body from one surface to the other. Using pastel in a way that breaks with tradition, Anderson begins by dematerialising red pastel onto a wooden panel. She then transfers pastel from board to cloth using a fine tool to scrape pastel from panel onto fabric (bed-sheets, tea towels, tablecloths) according to repetitive binary rhythms. Two series result from this movement: ‘Pulse Drawings’ correspond to the panels from which material has been removed. ‘Pulse Paintings’ creates a visual representation of the energy generated by the sway of the body. This movement of instinctive balance between two surfaces plays on the vibratory properties of red pastel to which Anderson is particularly sensitive. Through the process, Anderson transcribes her internal rhythm, thus experiencing a sense of immediacy and transcendence. Performative drawings - Alice Anderson : ‘Pulse Drawings - ‘Pulse Paintings’, 2017 Performances views ‘Spiritual Machines’, 2017 Alice Anderson performing ‘Cable Tray Totem’ in her studio in London. 222 x 116 cm, wire Performance ‘Wire’, Bâtiment Historique Eiffel, 2016 ‘181 Kilomètres’, 2016 181 kilometers walk,Performance view during the weaving of a 2 meter sphere, Saatchi Gallery” Biography of the artist Born in 1972. Lives and works in London EDUCATION 1998-2001 École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris 2002-2005 Goldsmiths College of Arts, London SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2017 In Vivo, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France Between Surfaces, UNIT9 Contemporary Art Centre, London, GB Everything is connected, public sculpture, Howick Place, London, GB 2016 Post digital, Union Projects, London, GB Time Capsules, Glass Tank, Oxford, GB Insouciance, public sculpture, Place Saint Germain des Prés, Paris, France Share & Wires, sculptures permanentes, Eiffel Historical Building, Paris, France 2015 Data Space, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris, France Memory Movement Memory Objects, Wellcome Collection, London, GB 2014 Cutting, Folding, Assembling, Coastal Currents Festival, Hastings, GB 2013 Performing Life, Villa Bernasconi Cultural Center, Lancy, Switzerland In Movement, Print Room, London, GB 2012 Travelling Studio, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, GB From Dance to Sculpture, Riflaker, London, GB Timescale, Artopia, Milan, Italie 2011 Childhood Rituals, Freud Museum, London, GB Years after Years, CoExist Centre, Southend on Sea, GB 2008 Soft Sculptures, National Museum, Nice, France Spectres, National Museum Pablo Picasso, Vallauris, France La Traversée des apparences, Frac Paca, Marseille, France 2007 D.Day, Espace Croisé, Roubaix, France 2005 Anderson’s Journal, Jeu de Paume, Paris, France Dr Edwards’ House, Marnay Art Center, France 2003 Vertical, Frac Paca, Marseille, France GROUP EXHIBITIONS