Artists Space

When Time Becomes Form:
Yellow

Performance
September 9, 2008, 7pm

A new durational performance by Amanda Coogan.

A tableaux vivant performance. The performer continuously washes the skirt of her dress. The piece is a continuation of the Artist’s investigation into presence and the effect duration and endurance has on the energy of live work.

When Time Becomes Form is an ongoing performance series of long-durational work curated by Marina Abramovic for Artists Space. Inaugurated in the Spring of 2007, the series consists of distinct, but interrelated, durational performances. Each of these five-day performances explores and questions issues of concentration, will power, and determination.

A woman is seated wearing a long, yellow dress with a full skirt that has extra fabric at the bottom. She is washing the front of her dress with soap suds, some of which are dripping down the front of the skirt.
Yellow. Performance view, Artists Space, 2008. [A woman is seated wearing a long, yellow dress with a full skirt that has extra fabric at the bottom. She is washing the front of her dress with soap suds, some of which are dripping down the front of the skirt.]

This “Tableau Vivant” features the artist dressed in a large yellow dress, continuously washing her skirt in a bucket of soap water, while a piano piece by Franz Schubert is played intermittently. The work refers to the Irish tradition of Magdalene Laundries, institutions that housed “fallen” women, where they were to give penance for their sins by working in the laundry.

Amanda Coogan is one of the leading young artists in Ireland. She was awarded the Ailled Irish Bank’s Art Prize 2004. She has performed and exhibited her work internationally including The Venice Biennale 03, Liverpool Biennal 04, PS1, New York, Galeria Safia, Barcelona, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam Asiatopia, Bangkok, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris and MARTa Museum, Herford.

The centrality of Coogan’s practice is durational live performance. Her powerful live events often form the basis for her videos and photographs. She has a real ability to condense an idea and to communicate it through her body. The performative videos are short, snappy and sassy, reflecting the metabolism of contemporary life. Coogan has recently been exploring the presence of the artist as performer in longitudinal live performances.

In January 2005, Coogan published the first monograph on her practice, A brick in the handbag in conjunction with her solo show at Limerick City Gallery of Art. Her work is currently on show at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.

A woman is seated wearing a long, yellow dress with a full skirt that has extra fabric at the bottom. She is holding up soapsuds, which are dripping down onto the front of her skirt.
Yellow. Performance view, Artists Space, 2008. [A woman is seated wearing a long, yellow dress with a full skirt that has extra fabric at the bottom. She is holding up soapsuds, which are dripping down onto the front of her skirt.]
A woman is seated wearing a long, yellow dress with a full skirt. She has the front of the skirt held in her teeth, with her hands on her knees. There are some soap suds on her hands, near her mouth, and on the front of the skirt.
Yellow. Performance view, Artists Space, 2008. [A woman is seated wearing a long, yellow dress with a full skirt. She has the front of the skirt held in her teeth, with her hands on her knees. There are some soap suds on her hands, near her mouth, and on the front of the skirt.]