MassHysteria X Making It

Thursday 14 October 2021

6-9pm

Performance from 7pm 

Space within the gallery is limited during the performance; RSVP recommended: rsvp@waddingtoncustot.com 

On the occasion of Frieze Week, Waddington Custot has commissioned MassHysteria, an all-female collective formed of twelve multinational dance artists, to create a durational performance in response to the current exhibition ‘Making It: Women and Abstract Sculpture’. 

Over the course of an hour’s durational performance, which visitors can experience in part or in its entirety, the performers and sculptures co-exist as equals in the space of the exhibition. 

Responding to the architecture of the gallery, and to the varied materials of the works, which feature horsehair, gold leaf, wood, manila rope, marble and stainless steel, among other media, MassHysteria condense ideas of shape, form and texture, looking at ridges, folds, wrinkles, pores, curves, bones and skin. Stillness is interspersed with movement; the body becomes sculptural and the static comes alive. 

A soundscape designed by MassHysteria will combine collected sounds, employing a process reflective of the use of foraged materials by a number of the artists in the show: Maren Hassinger initially chanced upon wire rope, now one of her signature materials, in a scrap yard; Mildred Thompson sourced wood from German forests when she was based in that country; Louise Nevelson famously combined items into totem like sculptures. The physical movement of the performance in the gallery will in turn respond to this sound. 

Performing at the gallery will be Dominique Baker, Jennie Boultbee, Katie Serridge and Sophie Page.