MONUMENT 0.3: The Valeska Gert Museum (2017)
by Eszter Salamon & Boglárka Börcsök
image: Karolina Miernik
“The Valeska Gert Museum operates through a collection of performative acts related to the life and work of German artist Valeska Gert. While rethinking notions of memory and archive, this embodied museum, in empathy with Gert’s own migratory life, uses the entire architecture of a host museum.Gert created radical performance art by experimenting with gender, race, national identity and aesthetics. Unlike other famous artists of her time, she never complied with the artistic hegemony of Nazi Germany. Despite her artistic fearlessness, provocativeness and anarchic intensity of performance, the importance of Valeska Gert’s role in art and dance history has been disregarded for a long time. As the museum’s collection unfolds, an archaeological site appears, in which the untraceable, unheard and unseen are re-hallucinated, giving rise to a new territory of meaning and sense of intimacy.”
Eszter Salamon
Concept and artistic direction Eszter Salamon Artistic collaboration Boglárka Börcsök Choreography and text Boglárka Börcsök, Valeska Gert, Eszter Salamon Performance Boglárka Börcsök and Eszter Salamon Production & organization Botschaft Gbr / Alexandra Wellensiek, Studio E.S / Elodie Perrin With the support of Foundation Boghossian-Villa Empain, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, the Regional Directory of Cultural Affairs of Paris – Ministry of Culture and Communication and the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ (NPN), Coproduction Fund for Dance, which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and Fonds Transfabrik, a German-French Fund for Performing Arts Thanks to Liza Baliasnaja, Mario Barrantes Espinoza, Nestor Garcia Diaz, Robin Diehl, Stefanie Lingener, Marie Messien, Herman Sorgeloos, Yvonne White