Munich/London. For the fifth consecutive year, BMW
and Frieze continue their long-term partnership with the major art
initiative BMW Open Work by Frieze. Drawing
inspiration from BMW engineering the project brings together art,
technology and design in pioneering multi-platform formats. The artist
selected by curator Attilia Fattori Franchini to create the latest
edition of BMW Open Work by Frieze is the Los Angeles-based
Madeline Hollander, who introduced the commission
through an interactive digital platform and livery intervention on BMW
i3 electric vehicles during Frieze Week 2020, and will present a live,
site-specific installation in the BMW Lounge at Frieze London in 2021.
As in previous years, BMW will also provide the VIP shuttle service
transporting the fair’s VIP guests with the new all electric BMW iX.
Working with performance, film and installation, Hollander explores
how the human body in motion negotiates its limits within everyday
systems of technology and engineering, industrial apparatus,
intellectual property and daily rituals. Her performances and
installations present perpetually looping events that intervene within
spatial, psychological and temporal landscapes, and engage with novel
modes of viewership. Titled “Sunrise/Sunset” the
project continues the artist’s recent research into traffic patterns
and working without human actors to depict unseen systems or
processes. Emerging from an inspiring dialogue with the department
responsible for sustainability at BMW Group and investigation into the
automatic adaptive system of BMW headlights, Hollander created for
Frieze London 2021, a site-specific, and self-sufficient, live
installation composed of one hundred recycled BMW LED headlights from
the BMW Group Recycling and Dismantling Centre. Thus, the artist
developed an energetic loop, a networked map choreographed by the
sunsets and sunrises across the globe. Fascinated by the responsive
nature of headlights technology which reacts to a number of factors
such as movement, light and weather conditions, the artist synced each
headlight to different time zones creating a live and ceaseless global
clock. In Hollander’s work our apparently erratic individual actions
and everyday technologies synchronically align, becoming a collective,
and in this case cascading-dance. The installation is accompanied by
an original score created for the occasion by the composer
Celia Hollander.
In addition to Madeline Hollander’s commission for BMW Open Work by
Frieze, Superblue and BMW i will present the world premiere of
“No One is an Island”, a collaboration between
Random International and Studio Wayne McGregor. “No One is an Island”
is fuelled by science and explores electrified movement steered by
advanced algorithms. It is a future-oriented reflection on how the
human mind empathises with artificial intelligence and automated
processes. The performance comprises sculptural, performative, and
musical aspects.
The centrepiece is a sculpture by Random
International that experiments with the minimal amount of
information that is actually necessary for an animated form to be
recognised as human; and the fundamental impact created by subtle
changes within that information. As it transitions from robot to human
likeness, dancers from Company Wayne McGregor
interact with the sculpture in a live, kinetic performance, further
exploring the relationship between humans and technology and our
capacity to empathise with a machine. The dancer’s interventions
scored by Chihei Hatakeyama add a performative
dimension to the sculpture, re-translating and celebrating the
connection between human and mechanical movement. On the occasion of
Frieze London, the installation will be shown publicly from October
13 to 16 daily between 3:00 and 7:00pm at Park Village Studios. To
visit, please register here.
BMW Open Work by Frieze
Now in its fifth year,
and curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini, BMW Open Work by
Frieze gives artists and researchers a platform to push the
boundaries of their work, starting the project with a creative
dialogue between arts, technology, engineering and design to pursue
their practice in innovative new directions. For its premier in 2017,
artist Olivia Erlanger integrated a motion-sensitive sculpture, audio
and immersive fog in her work “Body Electric”; in 2018, Sam Lewitt
engaged with BMW intellectual property and engine production to
conceptually and physically explore the production cycle of a BMW
engine in “CORE (the ‘Work’)”; in 2019, Camille Blatrix collaborated
with BMW Individual to explore the primal and emotional relationships
to labor and materiality, raising questions about functionality and
desire in the installation “Sirens”.
Frieze Music
BMW and Frieze have partnered for
Frieze Music once again to present British singer and songwriter Baka.
A short performance will be followed by an intimate conversation about
the intersection of music and arts. This evening will be available to
watch and listen on IGTV @friezeofficial
from October 16, 2021.
For further questions please contact:
Prof. Dr
Thomas Girst
BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs
Head of Cultural Engagement
Telephone: +49 89 382
24753
Email: Thomas.Girst@bmwgroup.com
Doris Fleischer
BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs
Cultural Engagement
Telephone: +49 89 328 27806
Email:
Doris.Fleischer@bmw.de
www.press.bmwgroup.com
Email:
presse@bmw.de