54 Hours Performances with Folkwang students opens at the Museum Folkwang from 30 June to 9 July

A total of 24 performers will lead visitors from the entrance, to the exhibition hall, and through atrium gardens of the Museum Folkwang for 9 days, 6 hours per day. The 24 artists that will be performing, include visual artists, singers, dancers, photographers, actors, musicians, directors and composers, between ages 17 and 42. With the support of the internationally-acclaimed performance artist and her teaching assistant, Billy Zhao, and the project manager, Wayne Götz, the students have transformed their personal stories into performative actions and environments. They create a collective portrait of interconnected biographies, memories, fears, wishes and realities.

These works explore different possibilities of performance. They incorporate sonic, sculptural, and multimedia elements, to support the use of the body in varied forms of expression.

In 54 Hour Performances the visitors are essential to the work. A number of performances ask for the direct participation of the public. The visitors’ role varies in every work; whether as the subject of the work, as instigators given instruction to co-create a performance, or purely as a witness to an action. In this way, the visitors that enter the exhibition, become a part of a collective experience.

Durational performance emphasizes focus, stamina and concentration – guiding principles that Marina Abramović has developed in her life’s work and has transmitted to the students over a one-year period. In four intensive joint workshop phases, the students have developed on their own concepts and prepared for the challenges of performing for 54 Hour Performances. A core approach to Abramović’s teaching is to sharpen the artist’s intuition, which involves creating a process of time and space for the students to freely test concepts, and then shifting to a professional setting, such as a museum, to present the work. By the end of the performances, students will have a unique experience working collaboratively with the museum’s curatorial, production, technical, security, maintenance, visitor service, and press teams to see through the creation of an exhibition. This marks the first time such a large scaled collaboration between the university and the museum has taken place.

23 exciting, poetic, surprising, and thought-provoking works are waiting for the public in the various spaces of the Museum Folkwang.

Works can be seen by: Eleonora Arnold Light Touch; Gloria Carobini Edera; Leon Maximilian Focker Caelum; Īnferi und Limbo; Klara Günther The Chicken; Camillo Guthmann Puppet Castle; Anna Veronika Hargitai In My Head, It’s A Neatly Draped Room; Pau Holtkamp Material Boys; Smila Vita Hoppe Ka(:)tarzis; Jakob Jentgens Entering; Moonjoo Kim Body Print; Sophie Kockler How To Become A Microwave; Goa-Louisa Kollewijn Inspection Of A Gentle…; Florian Kreßer The Last; Frederico Mendes Teixeira The Yellow Shoes; Francesco Marzano Tabula Rasa. Diary Pieces; Julian Mattlinger Draga Noastră Mămicută/Unseren, Lieben Mami!; Anaïs-Manon Mazic Climbing To Fall; Gaia Pellegrini Million Dollar Smile; Konstantin Pütz Edera, Marija Radovanović If You Look For Perfection, You’ll Never Be Content; Janina Schweitzer Aspiration; Aleksandar Timotić Are You Hungry?; Luke Venatier Zirkuspferd and Anton Vichrov I Am The Transmitter.

Born in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1946, Marina Abramović is today considered one of the most prominent ambassadors of performance art, and has fundamentally expanded the horizons of artistic work throughout her fifty-year career. She has been giving performances worldwide since the 1970s, pushing physical and mental limits to tackle some of the most urgent and universal global issues, as well as her own personal story. In 1997, Abramović was awarded the Golden Lion as the best artist at the Venice Biennale for her performance Balkan Baroque. In 2008, she received the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art in Vienna. In 2021, Abramović was awarded the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts in Spain. The artist was appointed as Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2022.

Marina Abramović is the first holder of the Pina Bausch guest professorship. The Folkwang University of the Arts has used funding from the North-Rhine Westphalia state government to establish the new Pina Bausch Professorship – named after world-famous Folkwang alumna Pina Bausch and run in collaboration with the Pina Bausch Foundation – for the 2022/23 winter semester.

The Pina Bausch Professorship provides an opportunity to secure internationally-acclaimed artists from all disciplines for one-year guest professorships at the Folkwang University of the Arts. These professorships enable them to work with the students to develop new work methods and adopt research approaches and mindsets that transcend all boundaries.

The Pina Bausch Professorship has been made possible by the North Rhine-Westphalia State Ministry of Culture and Science. The first professorship is also being specially funded by the Kunststiftung NRW. LEAP Contemporary Art Fund and the Folkwang-Museumsverein e. V. association are supporting the realisation of the performance at Museum Folkwang.