Body and Building

The performative exhibition Body and Building: 2 Evenings, 2 Days (of Performances) is a physical appropriation of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. During the weekend of March 28–30, 2025, the Schirn becomes a stage for performance art. 
 
The 140-meter-long empty gallery of the Kunsthalle, with its windows open to daylight for the first time, provides a unique atmosphere for the actions of some of the most internationally renowned contemporary performance artists. The bodies of the performers move within the body of the building, negotiating their diverse relationships to the space and the visitors. This creates a dialogue between art and architecture that examines the human body and the spatial presence that surrounds it. The performers directly confront the Schirn’s building: the movement of their bodies engages with and explores the architecture, thereby speaking to the power or strength of a space and of the possibilities of experiencing it, perceiving it, and forming new spatial bodies within it. 

The Schirn presents 14 live performances and a section with ten video works. Integrating dance, music, theater, poetry, and sculpture, as well as talks and discussions, the performance festival showcases an art form that has become essential to our present. 

Sebastian Baden, Director of Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt: “We have opened the windows of the Schirn gallery for this performative exhibition. In this unique setting, we are presenting one of the most important art forms of the present day. It is a rare opportunity to experience highly influential performance artists of our time live, and to see the architecture of the Schirn in a new light before the upcoming energy-efficient renovation. The performance festival also marks the beginning of the Schirn’s transformation and our temporary relocation to Frankfurt’s Bockenheim neighborhood.” 

The exhibition title, Body and Building. 2 Evenings, 2 Days (of Performances), is a reference to the first institutional exhibition of performance art, Performances: 4 Evenings, 4 Days, presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1976. A symposium titled Articulate Muscle: The Male Body in Art was held concurrently to that exhibition, which informed the theme with its emphasis on the body.  

As a live art form, performance in the late 1950s and early 1960s challenged the separation of art and life, as well as artist and spectator. In the twenty-first century, it has reached a new peak with its active involvement of the audience, its exploration of new notions of authenticity, and its artistic incorporation of the medium of film or social media during its presentation. No less significant for performance is the space that it is at once devised for and realized in as a work of art.  

Matthias Ulrich, curator of the exhibition: “In contemporary art, performance has had a more radical development in recent years than almost all other artistic forms of expression. It crosses the boundaries between genres, combines dance, music, and theater, allowing for a direct and immediate encounter with its environment—with visitors as well as with spaces.” 

ARTISTS Ei Arakawa-Nash, Isaac Chong Wai, Andrea Fraser, Irena Haiduk, Maria Hassabi, Astrit Ismaili, Norma Jeane, Lenio Kaklea, Lina Lapelytė, Ligia Lewis, Nazanin Noori, Ana Prvački, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Jimmy Robert, Annika Ström, Michael Sailstorfer, Selma Selman, Meg Stuart, Franz Erhard Walther, Adrian Ruth Williams, Anna Witt, Alicja Wysocka, Laura Yuile 

The exhibition “Body and Building: 2 Evenings, 2 Days (of Performances)” is supported by the Verein der Freunde der Schirn Kunsthalle, with additional support by the Dr. Hans Feith and Dr. Elisabeth Feith-Stiftung and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. 

Director: Sebastian Baden / Curator: Matthias Ulrich / Press contact: Johanna Pulz (Head of Press/Public Relations): presse [at] schirn.de / T +49 (0) 69 29 98 82 148 / Press material: here.