Taus Makhacheva participates in the group exhibition entitled Museum On/Off, curated by Alicia Knock at the Centre Pompidou's newly launched Galerie 0 - Espace Prospectif, Musee, a space dedicated to different forms of contemporary creation, designed to foster experimentaion and question the exhibition concept.
Museum On/Off involves unexpected new museographical extentions and fictional annexes, whereby artists take over a dynamic space-time incorporating temporary hangs and performances, real space and virtual space. The idea is to promote the museum as an experience, where visual installations provide the setting for constantly evolving fictions.
Makhacheva will exhibit her 2012 video work Gamsutl for the opening project from 11 - 16 May, 2016.
The video features the ancient and abandoned mountain village of the same name, whose residents were forced to relocate to collective farms in the late 1950s. The piece focuses on a lone figure striking various poses borrowed from Roubaud’s battle paintings and dance steps from the “Dance of the Collective Farm Brigade Leader,” a 1930s dance from North Ossetia that intermingles folk moves with Soviet socialist elements. The protagonist is performing a ritual of recollecting and re-enactment, aiming to recreate the geographical memory of the buried past, reliving Gamsutl in his mimicry of its wild landscape and striking ruins. Read more.