Exhibitions » Exhibition Archive » SQUARE2 Archive » Alicia Frankovich
Alicia Frankovich
30 August - 19 September 2010 in the Square² Gallery
Alicia Frankovich’s recent work focuses on the body in performance. Often poised, suspended or in a state of restraint, her body evokes the perfectionist discipline of an athlete, and conversely, the provisionality of the apparatus or structure involved.
In Lungeing Chambon (2009) the artist is precariously balanced in a dual harness and chair configuration with curator Hannah Mathews. Any slight movement by one party de-stabilises the other, so that the performance becomes a constant physical negotiation. The work reflects the power dynamics of the art world, but also the haphazard choreography of the dance or personal relationship, and the everyday social contracts which allow systems to function.
Frankovich was formerly a national level competitive gymnast; she exited untimely from the sport, having ‘frozen’ in competition. Here the disciplined effort to achieve total control over the body is paralleled by an equal potential for failure or physical collapse, and by the rudimentary nature of the chair apparatus. Professional poise and endurance are undermined by an element of comedic misbehaviour in which risk, compromise and spectacle play no small part.
The title, ‘lungeing chambon’, refers to a piece of equestrian equipment, used to train a young horse in the correct flexion and carriage of the head and neck. Here it comes into complex re-use as an architectural element, and part of a social sculpture. In this work established convention of endurance in performance art is met with a calculated and theatrical sense of urgency.
Born in Tauranga, 1980, Frankovich lives and works in Berlin, Germany and Melbourne, Australia. The artist has held recent solo exhibitions A Plane for Behaviours at Artspace, Auckland, 2009, and Super Segue at Artspace, Sydney, 2009. She has also participated in Picturing the Studio, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2009–10; The International Prize for Performance, Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea Trento, 2008; and the Busan Biennale, South Korea, 2006. Earlier this year her work was also included in The 4th Auckland Triennial: Last Ride in a Hot Air Balloon. Frankovich is currently resident in Berlin, having been awarded the 2010/11 Creative New Zealand Berlin Visual Artists Residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien.
This work is part of Time/lapse, a series of recent video art from Australia, curated by Andrea Bell. The series also included work by Laresa Kosloff, Gabriella and Silvana Mangano and Alex Martinis Roe.
ALICIA FRANKOVICH
Lungeing Chambon 2009 Performed in Melbourne, January 2009
Video
Duration: 1 minute: 51 seconds, looped Courtesy of the artist and Starkwhite, Auckland