Tino Sehgal
Encyclopedia
Tino Sehgal is a British
-German
artist
based in Berlin
. His works, which he calls "constructed situations", involve one or more people carrying out instructions conceived by the artist.
family, "had to flee from what is today Pakistan when he was a child, and he became a manager at IBM
"; his mother was "a German native and homemaker." Sehgal was born in London but grew up mostly in Düsseldorf
and Paris
; he studied political economy and dance at Humboldt University, Berlin and Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen
. He danced in the companies of French experimental choreographers Jérôme Bel and Xavier Le Roy. In 1999, Sehgal worked with the dance collective Les Ballets C. de la B. in Ghent, Belgium, and developed a piece entitled Twenty Minutes for the Twentieth Century, a series of movements performed in twenty different dance styles, from Vaslav Nijinsky
to George Balanchine
to Merce Cunningham
, and so forth. The piece last 55 minutes as the artist performed completely naked on an empty stage lit by a single light. Encouraged by curator Jens Hoffmann
, Sehgal began to work as an artist in 2000.
, London.
For (Untitled) (1997-2003), in between the dance ensemble table-dancing to Beyoncé‘s ‘Bootylicious’ (2001), Sehgal gave a lecture on market theory, including growth-rate diagrams. In 2000, his work Instead of Allowing Some Thing to Rise Up to Your Face Dancing Bruce and Dan and Other Things appropriated conceptual pieces by Bruce Nauman
and Dan Graham
. In This is So Contemporary (2005), as though possessed, museum guards surround the public and break out into a joyful, unsettling dance. Sehgal’s work Kiss (2007), exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
, was his first work in an American museum. Presented in association with the MCA’s show "Collection Highlights," Kiss is a sculptural work—two dancers kiss and touch, eventually resembling embracing couples from historical works of art; the work is appropriating, one after the other, the different amorous poses in Auguste Rodin
's The Kiss (1889), Constantin Brancusi
's The Kiss (1908), Gustav Klimt
's The Kiss (1907-08), Jeff Koons
and La Cicciolina's Made in Heaven (1990-91) and various Gustave Courbet
paintings from the 1860s. In Sehgal's 2010 work This Progress at the Guggenheim Museum
, New York, the artist empties Frank Lloyd Wright
's famed spiral gallery of all art work. The museum visitor is met at the base of the spiral by a child, who asks a small group what they think progress is. As they begin their ascent up the spiral ramp the visitors continue their conversation until they are met by a high school student who picks up the conversation. Further still, they are met by a young adult and lastly an older adult who finishes their ascent to the upper-most point in the Guggenheim. For This is New a museum attendant barks out headlines from the day's paper to visitors. In "This Success/This Failure" young children attempt to play without using objects and sometimes draw visitors into their games. For This is Good (2001) a museum worker waves their arms and hops from one leg to the other, then states the title of the piece. In This is Propaganda (2002) a museum guard sings a song with the lyrics "This is propaganda/you know/you know" twice, then announces the title and year of the work, each time a visitor enters the room. For This objective of that object (2004) the visitor becomes surrounded by five people who remain with their backs to the visitors. The five chant, "The objective of this work is to become the object of a discussion," and if the visitor does not respond they slowly sink to the ground. If the visitor says something they begin a discussion. His most complex work, This Situation (2007), required the participation of a group of intellectuals. They occupied an otherwise empty gallery space and interacted with each other and the audience in accordance with a set of rules and games established by the artist.
(in 2005, together with Thomas Scheibitz
). Sehgal had solo exhibitions at a number of important venues including the Museum für Moderne Kunst
, Frankfurt (2007); the Institute of Contemporary Arts
, London (2007, 2006, 2005); Kunsthaus Bregenz
, Austria (2006), Kunstverein Hamburg (2006), Serralves Foundation
, Porto (2005); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes (2004). The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts
presented Sehgal's first solo exhibition in the United States in 2007. In 2008, the Nicola Trussardi Foundation
has presented Sehgal’s first major exhibition in Italy in the setting of Villa Reale, one of the most spectacular historic buildings in Milan. He has also participated in the Lyon Bienniale, France (2007); the Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, London (2006); the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2005); the Venice Bienniale / Utopia Station (2003); as well as Manifesta, Frankfurt, Germany (2002). In 2011, Sehgal was chosen to co-curate a retrospective of Félix González-Torres
at Museum für Moderne Kunst
.
Sehgal received the Bâloise Prize
at Art Basel
, Switzerland, in 2004. In 2006, he was shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize
, and in 2007 for the Preis der Nationalgalerie für Junge Kunst at the Hamburger Bahnhof
in Berlin.
, the Stedelijk Museum
, and the Hamburger Bahnhof
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
-German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
based in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. His works, which he calls "constructed situations", involve one or more people carrying out instructions conceived by the artist.
Early life and education
Sehgal's father, a member of the SehgalSehgal
Sehgal is a family name, originally from the Punjab region in South Asia. Variant spellings include Sahgal, Saigal, Saihgal, Saigol and Sehgol...
family, "had to flee from what is today Pakistan when he was a child, and he became a manager at IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
"; his mother was "a German native and homemaker." Sehgal was born in London but grew up mostly in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
; he studied political economy and dance at Humboldt University, Berlin and Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen
Essen
- Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...
. He danced in the companies of French experimental choreographers Jérôme Bel and Xavier Le Roy. In 1999, Sehgal worked with the dance collective Les Ballets C. de la B. in Ghent, Belgium, and developed a piece entitled Twenty Minutes for the Twentieth Century, a series of movements performed in twenty different dance styles, from Vaslav Nijinsky
Vaslav Nijinsky
Vaslav Nijinsky was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer of Polish descent, cited as the greatest male dancer of the 20th century. He grew to be celebrated for his virtuosity and for the depth and intensity of his characterizations...
to George Balanchine
George Balanchine
George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...
to Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham
Mercier "Merce" Philip Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant-garde for more than 50 years. Throughout much of his life, Cunningham was considered one of the greatest creative forces in American dance...
, and so forth. The piece last 55 minutes as the artist performed completely naked on an empty stage lit by a single light. Encouraged by curator Jens Hoffmann
Jens Hoffmann
Jens Hoffmann Mesèn is a writer and exhibition organizer. He has organzied exhibitions since 1997 and is currently the Director of the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco where he also directs the Capp Street Project artist-in-residence...
, Sehgal began to work as an artist in 2000.
Works
What all of Sehgal's works have in common is that they reside only in the space and time they occupy, and in the memory of the work and its reception. The artist himself describes his works as 'constructed situations', whose materials are the human voice, language, movement, and interaction, without the production of physical objects. His pieces are choreographies that are regularly staged in museums or galleries, and continuously executed for the entire duration of a show. The reaction or even participation of the spectator gives the possibility for the work to actually happen. The artwork is the constructed situation which arises between the audience and the interpreters of the piece. Afterwards, the work of art will exist only in the world of experience and memory of those who directly experienced it. Sehgal's work can be neither photographed nor illustrated; no documentation or reproduction is allowed, in order to focus all the attention on the physical evidence. For his choreographies, Sehgal regularly auditions men and women of all ages, including actors, dancers, professional singers, and ordinary people with different backgrounds. The people who are selected to interpret his work are then camouflaged among the guards and the visitors. In 2012, he will present a newly commissioned work for the Turbine Hall at Tate ModernTate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
, London.
For (Untitled) (1997-2003), in between the dance ensemble table-dancing to Beyoncé‘s ‘Bootylicious’ (2001), Sehgal gave a lecture on market theory, including growth-rate diagrams. In 2000, his work Instead of Allowing Some Thing to Rise Up to Your Face Dancing Bruce and Dan and Other Things appropriated conceptual pieces by Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman is a contemporary American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives in Galisteo, New Mexico....
and Dan Graham
Dan Graham
Dan Graham , is a conceptual artist now working out of New York City. He is an influential figure in the field of contemporary art, both a practitioner of conceptual art and an art critic and theorist. His art career began in 1964 when he moved to New York and opened the John Daniels Gallery....
. In This is So Contemporary (2005), as though possessed, museum guards surround the public and break out into a joyful, unsettling dance. Sehgal’s work Kiss (2007), exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues...
, was his first work in an American museum. Presented in association with the MCA’s show "Collection Highlights," Kiss is a sculptural work—two dancers kiss and touch, eventually resembling embracing couples from historical works of art; the work is appropriating, one after the other, the different amorous poses in Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
's The Kiss (1889), Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
's The Kiss (1908), Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects...
's The Kiss (1907-08), Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....
and La Cicciolina's Made in Heaven (1990-91) and various Gustave Courbet
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
paintings from the 1860s. In Sehgal's 2010 work This Progress at the Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
, New York, the artist empties Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
's famed spiral gallery of all art work. The museum visitor is met at the base of the spiral by a child, who asks a small group what they think progress is. As they begin their ascent up the spiral ramp the visitors continue their conversation until they are met by a high school student who picks up the conversation. Further still, they are met by a young adult and lastly an older adult who finishes their ascent to the upper-most point in the Guggenheim. For This is New a museum attendant barks out headlines from the day's paper to visitors. In "This Success/This Failure" young children attempt to play without using objects and sometimes draw visitors into their games. For This is Good (2001) a museum worker waves their arms and hops from one leg to the other, then states the title of the piece. In This is Propaganda (2002) a museum guard sings a song with the lyrics "This is propaganda/you know/you know" twice, then announces the title and year of the work, each time a visitor enters the room. For This objective of that object (2004) the visitor becomes surrounded by five people who remain with their backs to the visitors. The five chant, "The objective of this work is to become the object of a discussion," and if the visitor does not respond they slowly sink to the ground. If the visitor says something they begin a discussion. His most complex work, This Situation (2007), required the participation of a group of intellectuals. They occupied an otherwise empty gallery space and interacted with each other and the audience in accordance with a set of rules and games established by the artist.
Exhibitions
Sehgal is the youngest artist to have represented Germany at the Venice BiennaleVenice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
(in 2005, together with Thomas Scheibitz
Thomas Scheibitz
Thomas Scheibitz is a German painter and sculptor. Together with Tino Sehgal he created the German pavilion on the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005. He lives and works in Berlin.-External links:...
). Sehgal had solo exhibitions at a number of important venues including the Museum für Moderne Kunst
Museum für Moderne Kunst
The Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main was founded in 1981. The museum was designed by the Viennese architect Hans Hollein. Because of its triangular shape, it is called "piece of cake"....
, Frankfurt (2007); the Institute of Contemporary Arts
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
, London (2007, 2006, 2005); Kunsthaus Bregenz
Kunsthaus Bregenz
The Kunsthaus Bregenz presents temporary exhibitions of international contemporary art in Bregenz, capital of the Austrian Federal State of Vorarlberg...
, Austria (2006), Kunstverein Hamburg (2006), Serralves Foundation
Serralves Foundation
Serralves Foundation is an art foundation whose mission is to raise the general public's awareness concerning contemporary art and the environment. The foundation is located in Porto, Portugal.-Casa de Serralves:...
, Porto (2005); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes (2004). The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts
Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts
The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts is a contemporary art center in San Francisco, California, United States and part of the California College of the Arts....
presented Sehgal's first solo exhibition in the United States in 2007. In 2008, the Nicola Trussardi Foundation
Nicola Trussardi Foundation
The Nicola Trussardi Foundation is a non-profit institution for the promotion of contemporary art and culture. Created in 1996, the Nicola Trussardi Foundation is neither a museum nor a collection...
has presented Sehgal’s first major exhibition in Italy in the setting of Villa Reale, one of the most spectacular historic buildings in Milan. He has also participated in the Lyon Bienniale, France (2007); the Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, London (2006); the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2005); the Venice Bienniale / Utopia Station (2003); as well as Manifesta, Frankfurt, Germany (2002). In 2011, Sehgal was chosen to co-curate a retrospective of Félix González-Torres
Félix González-Torres
Felix Gonzalez-Torres was an American, Cuban-born visual artist."For Felix it was much more powerful to assume that the gay and straight audience was the same audience, that being a Cuban-born American is the same as being an American. And being American was something he was extremely proud of."...
at Museum für Moderne Kunst
Museum für Moderne Kunst
The Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main was founded in 1981. The museum was designed by the Viennese architect Hans Hollein. Because of its triangular shape, it is called "piece of cake"....
.
Sehgal received the Bâloise Prize
Bâloise Prize
The Bâloise Art Prize is a prize awarded to two people each year at "Art Statements" sector of the international Art Basel fair. It is awarded by the Bâloise group , a company that works to promote contemporary, emerging art. The Prize has been in existence since 1999. Each winner gains CHF 25,000...
at Art Basel
Art Basel
Art Basel is an international contemporary art fair held each June in Basel, Switzerland. Similar to the Venice Biennale, it has been called "the Olympics of the art world". Art Basel features nearly 300 leading galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa...
, Switzerland, in 2004. In 2006, he was shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize
Hugo Boss Prize
The Hugo Boss Prize is awarded every other year to an artist working in any medium, anywhere in the world. Since its establishment in 1996, it has distinguished itself from other art awards because it has no restrictions on nationality or age...
, and in 2007 for the Preis der Nationalgalerie für Junge Kunst at the Hamburger Bahnhof
Hamburger Bahnhof
Hamburger Bahnhof is a former railway station in Berlin, Germany, on Invalidenstraße in the Moabit district opposite the Charité hospital. Today it serves as the Museum für Gegenwart , a contemporary art museum....
in Berlin.
Collections
On the sale of his work, Sehgal stipulates that there is no written set of instructions, no written receipt, no catalogue and no pictures. The conversation that constitutes a Tino Sehgal sale consists of his talking to the buyer (usually a representative from a museum) before a notary and witnesses about five legal stipulations of the purchase: that the work be installed only by someone whom Sehgal himself has authorized via training and prior collaboration; that the people enacting the piece be paid an agreed-upon minimum; that the work be shown over a minimum period of six weeks (in order to avoid seeming more like a theatrical event than an art exhibition); that the piece not be photographed; and that if the buyer resells the work, he does so with this same oral contract. This means that his work is not documented in any way. Sehgal's work is held, among others, in the collections of the TateTate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
, the Stedelijk Museum
Stedelijk Museum
Founded in 1874, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is a museum for classic modern and contemporary art in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It has been housed on the Paulus Potterstraat, next to Museum Square Museumplein and to the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and the Concertgebouw, in Amsterdam Zuid...
, and the Hamburger Bahnhof
Hamburger Bahnhof
Hamburger Bahnhof is a former railway station in Berlin, Germany, on Invalidenstraße in the Moabit district opposite the Charité hospital. Today it serves as the Museum für Gegenwart , a contemporary art museum....
.
External links
- 2007 "Kultureflash" interview
- 2005 Audio Arts interview
- Frieze article
- Frieze review of ICA show
- The Independent review of ICA show
- Sight and Sound profile
- Art in America review of ICA show
- Tino Sehgal at Fondazione Nicola Trussardi
- "A Progress: Or, One Foot in Front of the Other" review of Guggenheim show from n+1N+1n+1 is a New York–based American literary magazine that publishes social criticism, political commentary, essays, art, poetry, book reviews, and short fiction. It is published three times each year, and content is published on several times each week...
- Tino Sehgal at the Aubette in Strasbourg