FOLD
158 New Cavendish Street
London
W1W 6YW
United Kingdom
Fold Gallery is proud to present After White a collaborative show comprising painting, sculptural intervention and performance.
There is a physical awareness of spatial conditions that is as much the origin as it is the content of Michaela Zimmer’s work. While her paintings strive to resolve issues of corporeal energy in a visceral sense, her collaboration with dance is based on a mutual understanding of physical expression. Elements of performance are utilized to construct her work; continuous painted lines, applied in one stroke, with dashes and reflections that often produce multiple layers and make up a surface that is fluid but also precise. Designating the studio as a site of private ritual, Michaela Zimmer is known for
layered compositions on canvas coupling the traditions of painting and drawing with unconventional materials.
In After White Zimmer has invited Peter Welz, who for this collaboration, has designed a hybrid between an architectural device and a sculpture. The architectural structure divides the gallery in a manner that references modernism, not only presenting an obstacle, but also a means for the structure to interact with the painting. Sometimes the structure cuts into a view of a painting – sometimes it acts as a strut to support one. Welz and Zimmer invite the viewer to walk around and interact physically with the paintings and structure, to view them from different angles; in a sense choreographing the movement of the viewer, making them become a performative part of the work.
Welz’s interest in motion and architecture started from his first collaboration with choreographer William Forsythe for the installation Retranslation | Final Unfinished Portrait (Francis Bacon), presented at the Musée du Louvre in Paris in 2005. In this work the human body harmonizes, intersects and inserts itself perfectly into the piece as a gestural expression - an interaction with body and object is continued and expanded upon for After White.
On the opening night Miguel Altunaga will perform the next version of labo(rat)ori, an ongoing performance project between Zimmer and Altunaga who is a member of the Rambert dance company. For the first time Altunaga will not only act as choreographer but will also perform the solo.
Special thanks to Sarah Rosengarten, an artist working with textures and textile, who joins the team by creating the costume for Altunaga’s performance.