Lecture PERFORMANCE – ART AND LIFE by Prof. Kerstin Cmelka

Many thanks to the artist Prof. Kerstin Cmelka for her lecture Performance – Art and Life. Methods, Strategies and Aesthetics in Performative Actions and discussing the works of our participants within the Studio Program at BAI | Berlin Artist Residency, Art School & Arts Incubator.

“Although still hard to sell, performance is booming in the contemporary art world. On the one hand it is a relatively young medium in art education, still it is-on the other hand- being practiced and passed on between generations ever since. The same as in the arts, there is, in politics and economics, more and more attention being payed on performative actions, on their meaning and potential. Especially since the 1960s and 1970s artists have incorporated and established various directions, characters and styles of performance to the visual arts that have rejected current methods of acting, dance or musical theater. At the same time they could include and transform those very techniques. Professional acting and art performance stand as much in competition to each other (today and throughout history), as much as they influence each other and help each other to develop. Topics of gender as well as authoritarian systems have often been a motor for artists dealing with performance as well as starting or plot points in performances.

Kerstin Cmelka presents selected situations, excerpts and developments in (live and film) performance. At the same time she gives cross reference to her own work with performance, film and photography.” (Text by courtesy of Kerstin Cmelka)