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The presentation of a unique project by Danish artist took place at YARAT Contemporary Art Centre.

Performance is at the heart of the work of Christian Falsnaes. His actions are presented live or filmed, with or without an audience, and with man as study object and material. The theatrical, often absurd situations he creates with the active participation of the audience, are accompanied by cheers such as, “This is happening right now, this is the moment we’ve all been waiting for!”

“Front” is a participatory performance in which a large scale structure is continuously spray painted, torn down, paraded through the city and subsequently rebuild into new forms. The artist takes on the role of a director, who, through his instructions to the viewers, dissolves the aesthetic boundary between the stage and the audience.

YARAT creates a platform for the audience to participate and take part in the creation of the work. The resulting sculpture is a collective piece, which remains at its place of origin as a document of the collective performance.

The actions create an ambiguous feeling or experience that gives rise to questions about the relations between the individual and the group and those between the artist and his audience. Falsnaes engages in penetrating, physical explorations of a wide range of issues of social codes, group dynamics, power relations, authorship, gender roles and more. One of the forms this exploration has crystallized in, are the series of unannounced performances in which the artist took on several roles to direct the audience: from didactic artist to actor, from authoritarian leader to entertainer, clown, hooligan, and outcast. Increasingly, however, Falsnaes develops performative formats in which he himself is not physically present, making use of a telephone connection or stand-in. In other instances, he examines how the particular situation of a performance may facilitate the creation of an autonomous video piece.

Christian Falsnaes was born 1980 in Copenhagen, Denmark, currently lives and works in Berlin. He graduated from University of Copenhagen in 2003, and then in 2011 from Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Falsnaes has been widely exhibited internationally including solo shows at the Castlefield Gallery, Manchester; Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen; 1646, The Hague; Juan & Patricia Vergez Collection, Buenos Aires; Kunstverein Braunschweig; KIOSK, Ghent; Bielefelder Kunstverein; PSM, Berlin; Art Basel Statements, Switzerland; KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin; DREI, Cologne; 21'er Haus, Vienna; PSM, Berlin; OSLO10, Basel; Skånes Konstförening, Malmö, Sweden; Kunstraum Niederösterreich, Vienna.

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