Sanja Ivekovic
Eve’s Game, 2009
A performance proposed by Pierre Bal-Blanc, in presence of the artist, for Playtime festival at Bétonsalon in the frame of the preview of the exhibition “Réversibilité” at CAC Brétigny
Saturday 10th October, 4pm, at Bétonsalon, Paris
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Sanja Ivekovic's performance is based on a historical document – the photograph taken by Julian Wasser during the Marcel Duchamp retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1963. The image, which has become an icon within the art world, is here re-staged in the exhibition space at Bétonsalon and open to the public. In this image, reactivated in the form of a performance, the artist physically takes the place of Marcel Duchamp and places the curator responsible for inviting her to produce the project naked in front of her.
Eve Babitz who posed for the original photograph was 20 years old at the time. She has since contributed to several magazines (Ms Magazine, Harper's Bazaar), published several books on the icons of fashion, Hollywood cinema (Eve's Hollywood [1974], L.A. Woman [1978]) and design. In 1981, she published a books on Ettore Sottass and the Fiorucci label. She has also written several novels, such as Sex & Rage in 1979, on female surfers in California in the 1960s. She has also produced numerous album and magazine covers. Having herself become something of Beverly Hills style, underground icon, she gave an interview with Paul Karlstrom (critic and art historian) for the archives of oral history at the Smithsonian Institure of American Art in June 2000.
« Marcel Duchamp and Eve Babitz pose for the photographer Julian Wasser during the Duchamp retrospective at the Pasadena Museum of Art, 1963 – Image Copyright © 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris »
Sanja Ivekovic has replaced the game of chess with a dialogue taken from the interview between Eve Babitz and Paul Karlstrom, punctuated by the game clock that is associated with chess. If the artist takes the place of Duchamp as a figure, she embodies, on the other hand, Eve's responses in front of the naked curator who conducts the interview. In this play of switching roles, Sanja Ivekovic offers a live archeology of all the levels that are concealed in the image. The performance concludes with the projection of an amateur video of the song "Strange Idea of Love" downloaded from Youtube and sung by Eve Babitz at the London nightclub
The Lost Society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-R5IbJm4S4
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/
Oral history interview with Eve Babitz, 2000 Jun 14
The oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded
interview with Eve Babitz on June 14, 2000. The interview
took place in Hollywood, California, and was conducted by
Paul Karlstrom for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian
Institution. The reader should bear in mind that he or she
is reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose.
Sanja Ivekovic participated in the 10th International Istanbul Biennial (2007), documenta 12 (2007) and documenta 11 (2002) in Kassel, and Manifesta 2 (1998) in Luxembourg. Other exhibitions include (selection): re.act.feminism – performance art of the 1960s and 70s today, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 2008–2009; As soon as I open my eyes I see a film. Experiment in the art of Yugoslavia in the 60’s and 70’s, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, 2008; The Order of Things, MuHKA, Antwerp, 2008; Living Currency/La Monnaie Vivante, Tate Modern, London, 2008; Forms of Resistance – Artists and the Desire for Social Change from 1871 until the Present, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2007; WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2007; Die Regierung. Paradiesische Handlungsräume, Secession, Vienna, 2005; Now What? Dreaming a better world in six parts, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, 2003; and After the Wall, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 1999–2000.
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