14 interdisciplinary artists explore notions of performance and its "afterlives" or remains

An exhibition of live performances, performance videos and installation works by Concordia MFA students.
 

Live / Afterlivespresents a range of live, documented and durational works that explore notions of time, presence, absence, duration, and participation in contemporary performance. The artists in the exhibition engage with important developments in current performance practices (and contemporary art practices more generally): notions of site, expanded spectatorship, viewer interaction and participation, ethics, authenticity, relational aesthetics, community-based practices, intersubjectivity and the creation of community through performative exchanges and interactions.

Performance as an art form is itself durational: it can be traced back to ancient Greek theatre, through to anthropological and ethnographic methodologies, political upheavals of the 20th and now 21st centuries, and to movements and developments in contemporary art. Histories of performance art are themselves durational, enduring and withstanding the passing of time through performance documents, scholarly writings, artist texts, performance scripts and personal recollections. s.

Whereas some performance scholars have argued in favor of the primacy of liveness, today documentation — and by extension, mediation — has become an integral component of performance, culminating in exhibitions, collections and archives, re-enactments, and a plethora of forms through which viewers can retrospectively experience performance. What's more, performance is an increasingly social act, perhaps in response to globalization and the proliferation of technological devices that mediate face-to-face interactions.

The 14 artists in Live / Afterlivesexplore these and other developments through a range of performance-based works that originate with live actions, and that transcend installation, arrangement, video, photography, participatory, durational and embodied practices, highlighting a range of innovative approaches to performance and its documents.