20-28.07.2019
Localization: ul. Chłodna 1
10.00am - 1.00pm
Opening, meeting with the artists, and performance: 19 July 2019, 5.00pm
Biographies will be collected from 10.00am to 1.00pm, and read from 5.00pm to 8.00pm
on each day of the exhibit.
The project by artists of the Open Group, representing Ukraine at the Venice Biennale, is a long-term performance piece composed of several parts, and it aims at a reinterpretation of the notion of biography. The primary intent of “Biography” is to involve the audience. The performance begins with a letter by Y. Sokolov, in which he encourages people to provide their biographies to the project. In the letter, Sokolov quotes a fragment of a text Daniil Charms, which concludes with the declaration that “man is a part of the world”.
Part one:
Everyone can join in the project – all you need is to write your own biography. All materials collected will be stored in an exhibition container, freely accessible. Each biography will be read in public spaces of Gdańsk, and the readings broadcasted in the exhibition hall. There, another participant from the group will change the biography back into text, writing it down by hand on a special tape 2 cm wide, one after another. Films made with the biographies also constitute part of the exhibition. They will be screened for the duration of the exhibition.
Part two:
This part is composed of documented “gestures” that emerged in the course of the exhibition’s previous iterations. The “gestures” are the deliberations by OpenGroup over the phenomenon of the “biography”. What can it be like? What can be done with it? A total of 12 “gestures” has been gathered and displayed at the exhibition.
The first edition of the project was presented at PinchukArtCentre (Kiev) in 2014.