9/11/2005
Sislej Xhafa
Various venues, New York
Known for his minimal, ironic stand towards the social, economic and political realities of everyday life, such as tourism and immigration, the artist's first live performance will feature the artist himself with a truckload of people dressed as lawyers. An accompanying reception will be held at Yvon Lambert Gallery.
Yellow Associates in Motion and Association in Yellow - performance and exhibition
Kosovar artist Sislej Xhafa will present Yellow Associates in Motion as part of PERFORMA05. Xhafa's first live event in New York City will tour a truckload of performers, dressed as lawyers, through the streets of Manhattan. The performers will call out lawyers' names from the Yellow Pages. Through the direct calling of names Xhafa seeks to close the gap between lawyers as sophisticated representations of power and humanize the institution of law using subtle irony.
The extreme speed of exchange is also highlighted as Xhafa's 1950s agricultural truck steadily moves through the modern city. An accompanying exhibition will be held at Yvon Lambert, showing Association in Yellow, the static sculptural counterpart to, and consequence of, the mobile live event. Co-presented by PERFORMA and Yvon Lambert.
About the Artist
Born in Peja, Kosovo in 1970 artist Sislej Xhafa, who is based in New York, is known for his artistic investigation into the social, economical and political realities associated with the various complexities of modern society, such as tourism and forced illegality.
Xhafa's works are minimal, as well as ironic and subversive. He operates in various media, from sculpture and drawing to performance and photography. His works aim to challenge viewers to recognize the symptoms and cracks of contemporary global society. Xhafa has exhibited widely including at the Haifa Museum of Art, Israel (2004), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2003), and the Venice Biennale (1999 & 2005).
He recently developed the project Under Real, a site-specific installation for Project Rooms at ARCO'05, Madrid, Spain. He has studied at Chelsea School of Art in London, The Academy of Fine Art in Florence, and at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
PERFORMA05 has been curated by a consortium of independent organizers and curators at New York's leading arts organizations. Each curator was invited to propose a program especially for PERFORMA05 that focused on performance by visual artists. Proposals were reviewed by PERFORMA's director and curatorial team, with the goal of providing a broad spectrum of opinion on contemporary performance in the visual arts. Some venues invited additional proposals from independent curators. With a total of 98 artists at more than 20 venues, PERFORMA05 reflects the selection of fourteen active curators.
For more information: http://www.performa-arts.org or call (212) 533-5720.
Contact: Yvon Lambert; tel. 212.242.3611
Program:
November 10, 9.00am-10:00am : Performance
Location: Washington Square & 5th Avenue, under the Archway.
Join us for the opening kick off of the performance. Free coffee & donuts provided by Dunkin Donuts
November 10 – 19: Exhibition; An accompanying reception will be held at Yvon Lambert gallery, showing Association in Yellow, the static sculptural counterpart to, and consequence of, the mobile live event.br>
Reception November 10, 6-8 pm