- Venue
- Tate Modern
- Location
The continuous recurrence of the theme of air reveals a perpetual interest with concepts of the immaterial and the invisible. The Take a Deep Breath symposium was held at Tate Modern during 15-17 November in order to explore air, the nothing and breathing. It brought together speakers and delegates from a wide variety of disciplines ranging from philosophy to theatre, dance and the visual arts. The symposium offered a platform for both art video screenings and art installations by two international artists Nikos Navridis and Max Streicher.
During the symposium curator Katerina Koskina presented a brief summary of Navridis' work. In his previous video installations Navridis has incorporated latex balloons together with human breaths of performers. His video Breath, 2005 directly refers to Samuel Beckett’s short play of an empty stage full of rubbish, sound and light. At the symposium he showed a new light-sound installation work on the theme of breathing incorporating plain colour projections which were synchronised with breathing sound recordings.
Contrasting with Navridis' digital-sound work Marx Streitcher's gigantic duo of body sculptures lay on the floor among delegates during coffee breaks. Streicher's paradoxical large-scale, lightweight sculptures are sewn together out of white colour nylon spinnaker material to resemble human forms. The artist uses the power of air through industrial ventilators in order to make them move. As the artist states their monumental size is meant to overwhelm. Although this reads as a comeback of 60s and 70s inflatable art, these contemporary works are more sinister and disturbing contemplating our human vulnerability.
Eva Pryce is artist and art historian, and associate lecturer at Wimbledon College of Art.
Her book INVISIBLE TRANSFORMATIONS in the work of nikos navridis
ISBN 978-0-9557838-0-7 has been based on her research of his video works.
Take a Deep Breath symposium was organised by the London Consortium
