ART ON STAGE seen at two exhibitions:

'La Bohème'- The Staging of Artists in photography of the 19th and 20th century
25 September 2010 – 9 January 2011
Museum Ludwig, Cologne (Germany)

'Extreme Costume' at Prague Quadrennial
16 - 26 June 2011
Prague (Czech)

Art, costumes, stages

By the end of 2010, two exhibitions introduce to the world of art on stage. The Museum Ludwig in Cologne (DE) presents French, German, Austrian... artists of the 19th and early 20th century, called 'Bohème'. The word 'Bohème' comes from Bohemia, a region in Central/East Europe, today known as the Czech Republic. As artists were counted to the 'traveling' people, they were called 'Bohème' because many thought that all gypsies come from Bohemia.

'La Bohème' shows stagy portraits. Even ‘snap-shots’ of the artists' daily lives become stagy as the portrayed ones add their individual signature to the photo like it was typical for artists such as Pablo Picasso.

fig.: Poet, designer, filmmaker... Jean Cocteau ('Les Enfants Terribles') captured Pablo Picasso with his friend, the fashion model Paquerette (the one with the extraordinary bandeau-chapeau), and Russian painter Marie Vassilieff on 12 August 1916 at the café 'La Rotonde' in Montparnass, Paris. Silbergelatine, 17,6 x 25,8 cm. (C) Musée Carnavalet/ Roger-Viollet, Paris.

"Paris remained however the metropolis of art and artists, and so the self-stagings from around 1900 by the artists of Montmartre and Montparnasse, such as Modigliani and Picasso, testify to their will to style. ... The outlandish costumes in which the author Pierre Loti dressed up and the studio scenarios created for instance by Alphonse Mucha were also directly imbued with typical French flair." museum-ludwig.de

The second exhibition that focuses on art, costumes and stages is announced for June 2011 in Prague, Czech. The 'Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space' was founded 1967 and presents every four years performance design disciplines, costume, stage, lighting, sound design, and theatre architecture.
In June 2011, the exhibition 'Extreme Costume' will give an insight into extreme materials and extreme use of materials for costume to open new views on costume and its role in live performances. 'Extreme Costume' is curated by the Czech costume and textile designer Simona Rybáková.

On the website of the PQ, 'extreme materials' are described as "...any materials beyond traditional fabrics, such nano fibers or biodegradable paper, as well as special metals, plastic or even light as costume. “Extreme” means: different, other, unusual, daring, unexpected, surprising, precise, cosmic, virtual, untouchable, degradable, shining, painful, hurting, flying, extravagant, disgusting, deforming, etc." pq.cz/en/extreme-costume-read-more.html

fig.: She Bird, Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space.


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