Carl Andre
Loie Fuller
Alwin Nikolais
Charles Atlas
Valeska Gert
Kelly Nipper
Joséphine Baker
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Isamu Noguchi
Matthew Barney
Martha Graham
Emil Nolde
Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Lo-Ann Halprin
Helio Oiticica
Ringhoven
Raoul Hausmann
Gret Palucca
Pina Bausch
Alex Hay
Valentin Parnac
Max Becmann
Deborah Hay
Steve Paxton
Jerome Bel
Vilmos Huszar
Mai-Thu Perret
Gerhard Bohner
Niddy Impekoven
Francis Picabia
Fréderic Boissonas
Jasper Johns
Pablo Picasso
Hans Namuth
Antoine Bourdelle
Kurt Jooss
Jackson Pollock
Constantin Brancusi
Vassily Kandinsky
Yvonne Rainer
Trisha Brown
Allan Kaprow
Robert Rauschenberg
Alexander Calder
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
Man Ray
Giannina Censi
Thierry De Mey
Christian Rizzo
Etienne Chambaud
Ernst Ludwig KIRCHNER
Auguste Rodin
Lucinda Childs
Sol Le Witt
Yves Klein
Alexandre Rodtchenko
Rene Clair
Harald Kreutzberg
Charlotte Rudolph
Lizica Codreano
Frantisek Kupka
Jia Ruskaja
Merce Cunningham
Rudolf Von Laban
Alexander Sacharoff
Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
Ange Leccia
Valentine de Saint-point
Sonia Delaunay
Fernand Leger
Kazuo Shiraga
François Delsarte
Rene le Somptier
Lavinia Schulz & Walter
Fortunato Depero
Babette Mangolte
Holdt
Andre Derain
Daria Martin
Oskar Schlemmer
Theo Van Doesburg
Henri Matisse
Carolee Schneemann
Isadora Duncan
Vsevolod Meyerhold
Kurt Schmidt
Olafur Eliasson
jeff Mills
Nicolas Schoffer
Boris Erdman
Nikolai
Simon Dybbroe Moller
Tino Sehgal
Forrenger
Robert Morris
Gino Severini
Nicolas Floc’h
Rachid
Tomoyoshi Murayama
Varvara Stepanova
Ouramdane
Eadweard Muybridge
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Jan Fabre
Bruce Nauman
Andy Warhol
William Froshyte
Vaslaw Nijnsky
Mary Wigmann
An unprecedented exhibition devoted to the relationship between dance and the visual arts, from 1900 to the present. Covering over 2,000 square metres, the exhibition draws on the Centre's tradition of major multidisciplinary shows. Both original and prolific, the theme will be explored through works by the greatest artistic figures of the 20th century, the contributions of the founding movements of artistic modernism, and the current explorations of important contemporary artists and dancers.
Artists: Carl Andre,
Loie Fuller,
Alwin Nikolais,
Charles Atlas,
Valeska Gert,
Kelly Nipper,
Joséphine Baker,
Felix Gonzalez-Torres,
Isamu Noguchi,
Matthew Barney,
Martha Graham,
Emil Nolde,
Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Lo-Ann Halprin,
Helio Oiticica,
Ringhoven,
Raoul Hausmann,
Gret Palucca,
Pina Bausch,
Alex Hay,
Valentin Parnac,
Max Becmann,
Deborah Hay,
Steve Paxton,
Jerome Bel,
Vilmos Huszar,
Mai-Thu Perret,
Gerhard Bohner,
Niddy Impekoven,
Francis Picabia,
Fréderic Boissonas,
Jasper Johns,
Pablo Picasso,
Hans Namuth,
Antoine Bourdelle,
Kurt Jooss,
Jackson Pollock,
Constantin Brancusi,
Vassily Kandinsky,
Yvonne Rainer,
Trisha Brown,
Allan Kaprow,
Robert Rauschenberg,
Alexander Calder,
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker,
Man Ray,
Giannina Censi,
Thierry De Mey,
Christian Rizzo,
Etienne Chambaud,
Ernst Ludwig KIRCHNER,
Auguste Rodin,
Lucinda Childs,
Sol Le Witt,
Yves Klein,
Alexandre Rodtchenko,
Rene Clair,
Harald Kreutzberg,
Charlotte Rudolph,
Lizica Codreano,
Frantisek Kupka,
Jia Ruskaja,
Merce Cunningham,
Rudolf Von Laban,
Alexander Sacharoff,
Emile Jaques-Dalcroze,
Ange Leccia,
Valentine de Saint-point,
Sonia Delaunay,
Fernand Leger,
Kazuo Shiraga,
François Delsarte,
Rene le Somptier,
Lavinia Schulz & Walter,
Fortunato Depero,
Babette Mangolte,
Holdt,
Andre Derain,
Daria Martin,
Oskar Schlemmer,
Theo Van Doesburg,
Henri Matisse,
Carolee Schneemann,
Isadora Duncan,
Vsevolod Meyerhold,
Kurt Schmidt,
Olafur Eliasson,
jeff Mills ,
Nicolas Schoffer,
Boris Erdman,
Nikolai,
Simon Dybbroe Moller,
Tino Sehgal,
Forrenger,
Robert Morris,
Gino Severini,
Nicolas Floc’h,
Rachid,
Tomoyoshi Murayama,
Varvara Stepanova,
Ouramdane,
Eadweard Muybridge,
Sophie Taeuber-Arp,
Jan Fabre,
Bruce Nauman,
Andy Warhol,
William Froshyte,
Vaslaw Nijnsky,
Mary Wigmann.
The Centre Pompidou will present an unprecedented exhibition devoted to the relationship
between dance and the visual arts, from 1900 to the present. Covering over 2,000 square metres,
the exhibition draws on the Centre’s tradition of major multidisciplinary shows, a tradition
its president Alain Seban has said he wishes to revive. Both original and prolific, the theme will
be explored through works by the greatest artistic figures of the 20th century, the contributions
of the founding movements of artistic modernism, and the current explorations of important
contemporary artists and dancers.
Danser sa vie shows how dance and the visual arts together struck the spark of modernity,
inspiring both the major artistic movements and the key figures who made the history of modern
and contemporary art.
Conjoining the modern with the contemporary, this exhibition in three acts will show how both art
and dance have explored the body in movement. The exhibition Danser sa vie will allow us to
discover this hidden aspect of the avant-garde art movements as a constant source of inspiration
for contemporary art by establishing a dialogue between all the disciplines, of the choreographic
as of the visual arts, from painting to contemporary video. A vast selection of paintings, sculptures,
installations, films, videos and dance works will testify to the continual exchanges between them.
The title Danser sa vie [Dancing Ones Life] is taken from Isadora Duncan, the pioneer of modern dance:
“My Art is just an effort to express the truth of my Being in gesture and movement ... Before the public
which has thronged my representations I have had no hesitation. I have given them the most secret
vers 1922-1923
impulses of my soul. From the first I have only danced my life”
(Isadora Duncan, My Life, New York, 1927).
An Exhibition in three sections
The Dance of the senses, from Auguste Rodin To Matthew Barney
The invention of a new subjectivity is explored through the birth of a free dance emancipated from
classical tradition. In Germany, in the years of Expressionism and of “Freikörperkultur” (Free Body
Culture or “naturism”), there was a hitherto unprecedented exchange between artists and dancers,
exemplified, for instance, in the relationship between dancer Mary Wigman and the painters Ernst
Ludwig Kirchner and Emil Nolde. Later, other close relationships would be established, as for example
between Martha Graham and sculptor Isamu Noguchi. From Vaslav Nijinsky to Matthew Barney,
from Henri Matisse to Maya Deren, and Pina Bausch to Mike Kelley, film and contemporary art have
both entertained a dialogue with the masters of modern dance.
The abstraction of the body, from Loie Fuller to Alwin Nikolais
Here the birth of abstraction is viewed through the choreographic inventions of Loïe Fuller and the ways
in which Kandinsky, the Cubists, the Futurists, the Bauhaus and the Russian avant-gardes made
use of dance. Certain figures, such as Sophie Taeuber-Arp, were both dancers and visual artists. Others
maintained a dialogue with dancers, as did Kandinsky with Gret Palucca and Calder with Josephine
Baker. The explorations of Nicolas Schöffer and Alwin Nikolais then bring this story to a close with
mechanical ballets, kinetic inventions and virtual dances. This section also includes a new work by Olafur
Eliasson specially conceived for the exhibition.
The body as event, From Dada to Jerome Bel
This last section considers the connections between dance and performance art and vice versa, from
the first Dada actions at Cabaret Voltaire to the deployment of tasks (gestures taken from everyday life)
by dancer Anna Halprin, from the birth of the happening with Allan Kaprow to Black Mountain College.
In the 1960s, Merce Cunningham engaged an artistic dialogue with John Cage, and indeed with
Andy Warhol. A selection of works and documents looks back to the Judson Church in New York and
then highlights the influence of popular clubbing and techno culture.
Live performance
Performance-installations by Félix González-Torres and Tino Sehgal, and performances by Trisha
Brown (supported by the Centre National de la Danse, Paris, and the Conservatoire National Supérieur
de Musique et de Danse de Paris) and young contemporary artists bring dance alive for this event.
Publications
Éditions du Centre Pompidou will publish two works to mark the exhibition: a scholarly catalogue
and an anthology of texts by choreographers, writers, dancers, artists and philosophers.
Alongside the exhibition
A cycle of lectures and discussions and a programme organised by the Live Performance department
(with Meg Stuart, Maria La Ribot, Olga de Soto, Myriam Gourfink, Herman Diephuis and others) will have
the whole of the Centre Pompidou join the dance. So indeed will the cinemas, the regular Vidéodanse
programme contributing the screening of 200 films, featuring the work of some hundred choreographers
and retracing the history of modern and contemporary dance. The thematic organisation of this
programme invites the viewer to note the successive “ruptures” and claims of filiation, in other words,
to observe both the multiple dialogue that artists maintain with works of the past and the turbulent and
complex process of the emergence of the new.
Anne-Marie Pereira, 00 33 (0)1 44 78 40 69, anne-marie.pereira@centrepompidou.fr
Opening 23 november
Centre Pompidou
Place Georges Pompidou Paris
Exhibition open 11am – 9pm every day, except Tuesdays. Late opening Thursdays until 11 pm
Ticket: €10 - €12, depending on time, concessions €8 - €9