The retrospective video installation NO ONE SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS is a "memory explosion" of all of the Via Negativa excessive and transgressive acts - a memory of the nudity, blood, semen, sweat and urine with which the Via Negativa performers have soaked the Slovenian and European contemporary performing arts scene in the period between 2002 and 2012. As a form of artistic expression, excess is a performing strategy that has marked the work of Via Negativa. However, transgressive acts, nudity, provocation, shock, etc. have never served just as cheap means for attracting media attention; they are carefully thought-out strategies with which Via Negativa gives viewers an unexpected insight into the paradoxical, often extremely perverse positions we accept in the frame of modern capitalist industry of pleasure.
In 2002, a gallery performance titled Starting Point Anger took place in the Moderna galerija in Ljubljana. It was the first performance in a series dealing with the theme of the seven deadly sins; lasting seven years, the series included also the performances More, Incasso, Viva Verdi, Would Would Not, Four Deaths and Out. In 2009, Via Negativa launched a new series of performances, Via Nova. Over the next four years, 20 small-scale performances were produced, which Via Negativa connected into spectacular forms of collective presentations in museums and galleries (Via New Museum, Via Nova Via MSU Zagreb, Naked Presence - Kunsthalle Dusseldorf). Via Negativa arose from the need to examine the meaning, importance and reasons for the existence of theater today, and from the belief that the process (working method) of artistic creation defines the outcome of its production. Via Negtiva's basic creative field is the performative "I - here and now": my story, my position, my body, my situation, my gesture, my conflict ... The creative field is strictly limited: the reduction of the basic performing elements (via negativa), the theater as a medium of communication rather than aestheticization, a strong emphasis on the relationship between the performer and the audience, and on the question of what is real in this relationship.
The video installation NO ONE SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS synthesizes ten years of Via Negativa?s work. Their projects have been presented at many festivals and art centers in 21 European countries and the USA.
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Archive:
Opening: Friday, 14 December 2012 at 8 p.m.
Opening performance: Via Negativa / Nataša Živković: STILL LIFE
More about the performance http://vntheatre.com/projects/via-nova-series/still-life/
