exist-ence 5

Overview

You may have heard that performance art is dead. In fact, it was murdered recently by the godmother of performance art herself, Marina Abramovic. The epic fail occurred at MoMA in New York, when she got Jay-Z to rap his art-inspired song called 'Picasso Baby' at her whilst walking around emoting on a white square. It looked like the most awkward thing ever. It's actually almost too embarrassing to post this visual evidence that such a thing happened. But we also can't not.

Anyway, who needs MoMA when you've got Sydney's PACT Centre for Emerging Arts? And who needs Marina Abramovic when you've got Rebecca Cunningham and Nicola Morton curating exist-ence 5, a whole festival of actually good live art, action art and performance art?

Brisbane artist-run initiative EXIST started the exist-ence festival in 2008, with the aim of developing live art audiences. In 2013, they're expanding to include partnerships with PACT in Sydney and A is for Atlas in Melbourne. The Sydney line-up is exciting enough to make you want to stage your very own happening (do it) and includes John G Boehme (Canada), Henrik Hedinge (Sweden), Bonnie Hart (Australia), Naomi Oliver (Australia) and Sandra Carluccio (Australia), with more to be announced.

There's also a program of free artist talks, presentations and discussions featuring some of the country’s biggest live art heavyweights including Julie Vulcan, Rebecca Cunningham, John G. Boehme, Henrik Hedinge, Bonnie Hart, Naomi Oliver, Sandra Carluccio, John A. Douglas, Sarah Rodigari, David Capra, Jess Olivieri, Boni Cairncross, Jodie Whalen.