Wayne McGregor Employs AI In One Choreographic Work & Addresses The Climate Crisis In Another This Week @ Sadler's Wells In London

text by Lara Monro

This week, the multi-award-winning choreographer and director Wayne McGregor CBE will present Autobiography (v95 and v96) and UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey at Sadlers Wells, London. 

For over twenty five years, McGregor’s multi-dimensional choreographic work has radically redefined dance in the modern era, securing his position at the cutting edge of contemporary arts. Take, for example, his appointment as the first choreographer from a contemporary dance background to be Resident Choreographer at The Royal Ballet in 2006, where he has created over twenty productions that daringly reconfigure classical language. 

Alongside his multiple cross-sector collaborations and role at The Royal Ballet, Studio Wayne McGregor is the creative engine of his life-long enquiry into thinking through and with the body. The 30+ works created since being established in 1992 (as Random Dance) showcase the evolution of his distinctive visual style and reveal the movement possibilities of the body in ever more precise degrees of articulation. 

McGregor’s Autobiography (v95 and v96) is the latest iteration of Autobiography (1.0), a series of unique dance portraits inspired and determined by the sequencing of his own genetic code. The work upends the traditional nature of dance-making by using the new AI tool AISOMA to hijack his DNA data through its specially created algorithm, which overwrites the configurations of 100 hours+ of his choreographic learning to present fresh movement options to the performers. The meshing of artificial intelligence and instinct converge to create a totally unique dance sequence that complements the medium’s ephemeral quality. 

While v95 and v96 shines a light on the cutting edge innovation capabilities of dance and future facing technology, UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey is a moving meditation on the climate crisis. Inspired by the Jim Henson cult classic, The Dark Crystal, it depicts an Earth driven by extremes and urgently in need of healing; a modern eco-myth that asks how we can come together to be whole again. The combination of cutting-edge costumes paired with the digital landscapes creates a stunning blend of fantasy and documentary. 

Autobiography (v95 and v96) will be showcased this Tuesday and Wednesday (March 12th & 13th), while UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey will be showcased this Friday and Saturday (March 15 & 16th) at Sadlers Wells, London. 

scene from Autobiography (v95 and v96)

scene from UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey

how swift, how far Explores our Environmental Woes @ Wonzimer Gallery

All images courtesy of the artist and Wonzimer.

how swift, how far—opening August 18 at Wonzimer Gallery—is a group exhibition of 9 artists that engage environmentalism beyond the realm of “documentary” images, creating transformative and metaphorical works about the various ecologies we inhabit in media that includes painting, photography, sculpture and video. While issues like climate change are always in the forefront, this show seeks to acknowledge the multiple issues that our environmental woes as a society interconnect with: concepts of identity, class and other cultural resonances that are relevant in our current discourse.

how swift, how far is on view through September 20 @ Wonzimer Gallery, 341-B S Avenue 17 Los Angeles 90031

A Forsaken Place: Andrea Zittel's A-Z West Is A Laboratory For The Future →

Andrea Zittel
A-Z Wagon Station customized by Giovanni Jance
2003
Powder-coated steel, MDF, aluminum, Lexan,cushions, iPod Nano, headphones, solar iPod chargers
91 x 82 x 57 inches
© Andrea Zittel, Courtesy the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles


The desert is an unforgiving, but magnetic landscape. Agnes Pelton, Georgia O'Keeffe, Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, and many more artists have all been drawn to the desert of the American West. Its barrenness, its potential, its raw heat, its solitude, and liquid mirages all provide a contemplative and hot combination of all the right ecosystemic ingredients for artists to experiment and conceive of cosmic ideas. Even the word desert is alluring: it comes from the ecclesiastical Latin root desertum, which means a “forsaken” or “abandoned” place. Lately, though, the desert has become less a quirk of America’s multifold topography and more a frightening, but beautiful prelude to an arid, lifeless future on Earth. 

Andrea Zittel fits into the historical canon of artists lured to these forsaken and abandoned landscapes—abandoned by time and most botanic nature—but she isn’t so much a land artist as she is an artist of the land. Like the late artist and sculptor Noah Purifoy before her, Zittel is not a visitor—she is a guardian of the desert’s inexplicable potential as a testing ground for future civilizations who might live in a world that is going through a rapid process of what geologists call desertification.  According to scientists, over a third of the world is going through this process, and every year 120,000 square kilometers of land turns into an actual desert. Studies show that if global carbon emissions aren’t curbed, much of the Earth will become a desert by 2050. Read more. Originally published in Autre’s Biodiversity Issue, FW 2021

Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life @ MoMA PS1 In New York

From the very outset of her career in the 1950s, Niki de Saint Phalle (American and French, 1930‒2002) defied artistic conventions, creating works that were overtly feminist, performative, collaborative, and monumental. Her first major US exhibition, Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life features over 200 works that highlight Saint Phalle’s interdisciplinary approach and engagement with pressing social issues. Innovation was key to Saint Phalle’s process: from beginning to end, she envisioned new ways of inhabiting the world.

Saint Phalle also engaged with the politics of social space in her work. Addressing subjects that ranged from women’s rights to climate change and HIV/AIDS awareness, she was often at the vanguard in addressing pressing issues of her time. In particular, her work to destigmatize HIV/AIDS is highlighted through works related to her illustrated book AIDS: You Can’t Catch It Holding Hands (1986).

Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life is on view through September 6 @ MoMA PS1 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Queens

 
 

Olafur Eliasson: In real life @ Tate Modern in London

Olafur Eliasson: In real life marks the most comprehensive solo presentation of the artist’s work, and his first major survey in the UK. Eliasson consistently seeks to make his art relevant to society, engaging the public in memorable ways both inside and outside the gallery. Driven by his interests in perception, movement, and the interaction of people and their environments, he creates artworks which offer experiences that can be shared by all visitors. The exhibition also examines Eliasson’s engagement with issues of climate change, sustainable energy, migration, as well as architecture. Olafur Eliasson: In real life offers a timely opportunity to experience the immersive world of the endlessly inquisitive artist.

Olafur Eliasson: In real life is on view through January 5, 2020 at Tate Modern Bankside, London SE1 9TG. photographs courtesy of Tate Modern

Christian Eckart Presents "White Noise" @ Wilding Cran Gallery In Los Angeles

In White Noise, Christian Eckart is re-presenting romantic sublime imagery for the purpose of reconsidering its primal power specifically in the context of the potential extinction of the human species as a result of climate change. Without humankind, who will be left to appreciate, collect, and share the Earth's ineffable beauty and awesome grandeur? The exhibition title is an acknowledgement to the profound impact Don DeLillo's 1985 novel by the same name, and presenting similar undercurrents, had on the artist many years earlier. White Noise is on view through March 17 at Wilding Cran Gallery 939 South Santa Fe Avenue, Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of Wilding Cran Gallery

Karon Davis' Solo Exhibition 'Muddy Water' @ Wilding Cran Gallery In Los Angeles

Just as North Carolina faced yet another “500-year storm,” Los Angeles saw the opening of Karon Davis’s Muddy Water at Wilding Cran Gallery. The show takes it’s name from Bessie Smith’s 1927 recording of Muddy Water, a song about the Great Mississippi Flood. The body of work reflects on the effects of climate change, and subsequent migration and displacement, offering a glimpse into the experiences people encounter during natural disasters. Muddy Water is on view through November 4th at Wilding Cran Gallery 939 South Santa Fe Avenue Los Angeles. photographs by Summer Bowie