MELANIE MANCHOT – LEAP AFTER THE GREAT ECSTASY
2013-04-15Set on the world’s largest natural ski jump, the video charts the intense preparations for an annual world cup, both in terms of the materiality of the site and the individuals involved. The piece tracks in great detail those elements that contribute to the construction of a large-scale event as well as the obsessive focus required to perform at the edge of what is possible, to attain ten seconds of human flight and to briefly defy gravitational pull.
Explored in the work is the tension between nature and a human desire for control. Arguably many of the processes and gestures observed across the work’s distinct sequences contribute to the endeavor to shape and sculpt a section of nature for a specific human activity, to make it perfect, even just for a moment.
Manchot has devised an installation that takes over the gallery, its yard and playhouse and transforms these into a continuous choreography. A small group of night time photographs opens the show and sets the stage: each of the images is a portrait of the location, of its dense physicality and what it might stand for in terms of danger and desire. Further staging devices such as a provisional seating structure and an outside wooden room reflect the material nature of these temporary events while providing custom made environments for the work.
Exhibition runs through till June 1st, 2013
CARSLAW St* Lukes
137 Whitecross Street
St* Lukes
London
EC1Y 8JL
