Past event

15 June 2024

Hall

16:00

White Out is a solo performance by the artist and choreographer Maria Hassabi, originally created in 2023 for her solo exhibition at Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong, entitled I’ll Be Your Mirror

A solo dancer performs on a white museum style bench in the Hall of the LAC. She shuffles herself from one place of pause to the next, materializing uncomfortable and even contorted positions. Twists and turns occur on top, underneath and around the bench, finding an entangled body on a seemingly endless loop. A quest for rest, for a place to be, to become, to breathe.
Since the early 2000s, Maria Hassabi has carved a unique practice based on the relation of the live body to the still image and to the sculptural object. Concentrated on stillness, deceleration and aesthetic precision, her works – ranging in mediums of performance, installation, sculpture, photography, and video – reflect on concepts of time and the human figure as a physical entity. 
In most of her works, the performing body is the main subject, often embedded within imposing installations. Body and gravity, time and space are in constant negotiation, anchoring the awareness of both the dancers and the viewers to the present moment. The initial invitation of a spectacle exhausts itself, and a common corporeality and radical intimacy is exposed.

concept, choreography and dance 
Maria Hassabi

sound
Stavros Gasparatos
Maria Hassabi

costumes
Venia Polychronaki

An artist and choreographer, she works with performance, installation, sculpture, photography and video. Since the early 2000s she has developed a unique artistic practice based on the relationship between the live body, the still image, and the sculptural object. Her works reflect on concepts of time and the human figure, while employing a variety of media to emphasise the complexity of formal organisation. Solo exhibitions and presentations include Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2023); LUMA Arles (2022); OGR, Turin (2022); Secession, Vienna (2021); K20, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2017-18); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2017); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2016). Her works have also been featured in group exhibitions and festivals such as the FRONT Triennial, Cleveland (2022); Performa, New York (2019, 2013, 2009); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018); Venice Biennale (2013). Among the numerous awards, the 2019 Performa Malcolm McClaren Award; 2016 “Bessie” Award; 2015 Herb Alpert Award; 2012 President’s Award from LMCC; 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship; 2009 Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

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