Drop City | CHOREOGRAPHY at Arcade until 29 July 2017
CHOREOGRAPHY
Arcade
UNTIL 29 JULY 2017
Paul Becker, Nadia Hebson, Francesca Pedraglio, Eleanor Wright
In June 2017 Drop City will be collaborating with Arcade Gallery in London on CHOREOGRAPHY, an exhibition with a series of accompanying events, organised and complied by Paul Becker. The exhibition at Arcade takes as its starting point the work of the French writer/director Marguerite Duras and in particular, two of her films: India Song (1975) and Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977). In both films, as in many of the novels, a central figure, herself inert, acts as the epicentre. In one film, she lies in bed all day, never leaves her house while the rest of the characters constellate around her story. In the other film, she moves ‘alone, queen like’ through various ambassadorial parties and stilted, stylised and detached entanglements with a series of beautiful young men. Both films trace the choreography of these central lacunae who delineate and encrypt desire but are themselves disconnected from any emotional life. These ‘lovers without love’ act as the critical centre point in much of Duras’ work. The space will be activated by the works of the artists and by a series of talks, readings and post facto discussion with Ghislaine Leung, Chris Fite-Wassilak, Sophie Macpherson, Natasha Soobramanien and Paul Becker.
Paul Becker is an artist and writer and his work occupies a space between these two semi-independent lines of work: some form of literary fiction and painting. His most recent work Choreography/Coreografia – a short fiction set within RW Fassbinder’s 1976 film Chinese Roulette – is published by Juan de la Cosa, Mexico.
Chris Fite-Wassilak is a writer and critic, and a regular contributor to Art Monthly, Art Papers, Art Review and frieze. His short book of essays Ha-Ha Crystal is published by Copy Press.