Unbound. Performances as Rupture

The Julia Stoschek Foundation in Berlin presents 35 artists whose works from the 1960s to the present explore the intersections of performance and video.

The group exhibition UNBOUND: PERFORMANCE AS RUPTURE is dedicated to the question of how artists at different times have dealt with the body in relation to the camera, rejecting ideologies of oppression, breaking through historical narratives or shaking up notions of identity. The exhibition, which brings works from the Julia Stoschek Collection into dialogue with loans, traces various intersections of performance and video art from the 1960s to the present, paying particular attention to forms of rupture, break and pause.

In contrast to the conventional notion of performance as an ephemeral live art form in which immediate disappearance is central, UNBOUND emphasises the use of the camera as a recording device and as an integral part of the performance itself. The exhibited artists explore the fusion of presence and virtuality to reveal the paradox between the never fully representable identity of the performing subject and the camera as a powerful tool. In doing so, the colonial gaze is questioned and time-based technologies are used to create connections across space and time. The exhibition combines historical works with contemporary approaches and explores themes such as body movements in physical and digital spaces. The Julia Stoschek Collection presents key videos, films and photographs that illuminate the aesthetic, social and political potential of performance and video.