About walking with Duchamp
by Silvio De Gracia
Walking with Duchamp is a performance / interference in urbanized environments in different countries. It is a work in progress that tries to challenge and reframe the contexts in which it installs its strategy of transit and drift. Using the iconic urinal of Duchamp, fetish of the contemporary art, the work explores through the strangeness and the irruption, the interrelations between art, architecture and public space. The work consists of a pilgrimage of the subject / artist who rediscovers and confronts, through his disturbing and disruptive presence, the logic of the social conventions of the city and its spaces of significance.
ABOUT WALKING WITH DUCHAMP IN THESSALONIKI
“The idea of drifting in the city (dérive), according to the situationists’ concept of psychogeography and combined with a mental dialogue with Duchamp and his theory of demystification challenging the artistic work, is portrayed in Silvio De Gracia’s performance Walking with Duchamp. The artist, holding a urinal, explores the city center, attracting the attention of passers-by and causing various happenings. The act of wandering aims at investigating the political, economic and social dimensions of urban space, highlighting at the same time new problems and situations, which challenge the apathy and numbness which are landmarks of contemporary societies. Furthermore, the action provokes the re-examination and reevaluation of the relationship and perception of daily urban life and art, and how it is perceived and treated within this framework. The dichotomy between private and public realms, the relationship between the personal and the collective and the way these conflicts and analogies interact through art, give the performance an unmistakable social and aesthetic quality. “
Eirini Papakonstantinou. Curator of Thessaloniki Performance Festival. In PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL catalog- Thessaloniki Biennale, published by State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece, 2011.
Walking with Duchamp / itinerary
2010 – La Plata, Argentina. Homenaje a “Manojo de semáforos” de Edgardo Antonio Vigo [October, 24]
2011 – Athens, Greece. Produced by BIOS, Centro de Arte Actual [September, 16]
2011 – Tesalónica, Grecia. Thessaloniki Performance Festival. 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art. Curated by Eirini Papakonstantinou [September, 24].
2011 – Lisboa, Portugal. Encuentro Internacional de Performance Epipiderme [September, 28]
2015 – San Pablo, Brasil. PERFOR6, Sexto Fórum de Performance [November, 12]
2017 – Osaka, Japón. NIPAF. 22nd Nippon International Performance Art Festival [February, 3]
2017 – Kyoto, Japón. NIPAF. 22nd Nippon International Performance Art Festival [February, 3]
Silvio De Gracia is an interdisciplinary artist and independent curator based in Junín, Argentina. He has presented his performances, conferences, and public art projects in Canada, Italy, Serbia, United Kingdom, Greece, Portugal, Japan and Latin America in festivals and events as NIPAF The 22nd International Performance Art Festival, Tokio, Osaka and Nagano, Japan; Acción!MAD16, XIII Encuentro Internacional de Arte Acción, Madrid, Spain[2016]; 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art, Toronto, Canada [2016]; FAAC Festival de Arte Acción de Cuenca, Ecuador [2015]; 8th Encuentro of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics, São Paulo, Brazil [2013]; Performance Festival – 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Greece [2011]; RIAP -Rencontre Internationale d’Art Performance de Québec, Canada [2006]; Exchange Japanese-Argentine of Performance Art, Buenos Aires, Argentina [2005]. He directs the Videoplay project, an international platform devoted to diffusion of videoperformance.
Lascia un commento