A performance of Angela Goh’s work Body Loss.
Body Loss is iterative and evolves in response to the architecture of the site in which it is presented. Physically engaging with her surroundings, in this work Goh moves through, crawls along and scales the architecture of a space, testing and expanding the limitations of both her body and these structures. Originally commissioned by Auto Italia, London, Body Loss has been exhibited in four cities since 2017, including gallery spaces in Bethnal Green, an abandoned office building turned art space in Brussels, a converted barn in Texas and the Grand Courts of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW).
Somewhere there is a Siren. The disembodied female voice is perhaps more horrific than the female body itself. The dark is not as frightening as the imagination it conjures.
Sounds produce images. Hearing the female voice evokes the cultural imagination of monstrosity. In folklore, film and popular culture, the female voice is gendered, sensationalised, feared and fantasised. Equally so, is the female body, as both tred the unstable border between the angelic and the horrific.
Like the voice, Body Loss erupts from the mouth; the tunnel between interiority and exteriority, biology and language, materiality and meaning; the fantasy and the gateway through which one eats the world that consumes it.
As part of LIVE for Melbourne Art Fair (17-20 February 2022), Performance Review and Melbourne Art Fair presents the Melbourne premiere of Body Loss on Gallery Night (16 February 2022) at NGV. LIVE is a performance program for Melbourne Art Fair 2022 dedicated to supporting a diverse representation of contemporary artists in the creation and presentation of performance works. LIVE is free to the public and will take place in public locations across Melbourne CBD, South Wharf, Southbank and Docklands.
Performance Review Curator: Anador Walsh
Angela Goh is a dancer and choreographer. Her work poses possibilities for disruption and transformation inside the aesthetics and conditions of technocapitalism, planetarity, and the post-anthropocene. Her work has been commissioned by the Sydney Opera House, Auto Italia, Taipei Performing Arts Center and Next Wave, as well as being presented widely across Australia, Europe, the UK, USA and Asia including at Performance Space, New York; fka PS122, Arnolfini; SPRING Festival, Baltic Circle; Artspace, Sydney; Fusebox Festival; Liveworks Festival; My Wild Flag; the Art Gallery of NSW; The Shed at Shedhalle, Zurich and AsiaTOPA. She won the 2020 Keir Choreographic Award and the 2017 Fbi Sydney Music Arts and Culture Best Artist Award. She has received fellowships from Sydney Dance Company and Create NSW, as well as residencies from Rimbun Dahan, Tanzhaus Zurich and the Cite Internationale des Arts.
Anador Walsh is a curator and writer living and working in Naarm (Melbourne). Walsh is passionate about performance and conceptual art practices and their ability to reflect our current socio-cultural condition. Central to her curatorial practice is a dialogical approach that preferences relationship building and the sharing of knowledge. In 2020 Walsh took part in the Gertrude Emerging Writers Program and was the 2019 recipient of the BLINDSIDE Emerging Curator Mentorship. Anador has held the professional positions of Marketing and Development Manager at Gertrude and Gallery Assistant at both Neon Parc and STATION Gallery. Anador is the founding editor of Performance Review.
Melbourne Art Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation established in 2003 to promote and support contemporary art and living artists. Committed to bringing artists, galleries, collectors, and the art loving public together, the Foundation leads the way in building audiences and a market for Australia’s living artists. It weaves together commercial, social, cultural, and environmental threads to support the rich cultural tapestry of the Australian visual arts community. The Foundation sponsors a range of programs anchoring Melbourne Art Fair as a cultural benchmark including commissions, special projects, exhibitions, conversations, and performances.
