Shadi Habib Allah, The Real Thing?
Installation view, Palais De Tokyo, 2013
Diverse attitudes towards performance question the ambiguous terrain of the real, challenging its construction and our mediated experience.
Antonia Alampi and Jason Waite are two curators respectively based in Cairo and in New York, who have come together to reflect upon emerging artistic approaches to performative practice in relation to the present condition. The Real Thing? is an exhibition where diverse attitudes towardsperformance question the ambiguous terrain of reality/fiction, challenging these constructions and our mediated experience of what can be called 'real life'
A number of art historical sources state that in 1962 the Japanese artist Sho Kazakura presciently appeared naked, still and standing in an otherwise completely empty Tokyo gallery - in a performance entitled The Real Thing. Times when the ontology of performance located itself in the presence of the artist himself, when the mask, narrative and theatrical structure were discarded, to put forth art as inherent in every aspect of life.