Anne Imhof

Drawing for SOTSB II

Anne Imhof’s School of the seven Bells (SOTSB) is based on a series of hands games in which an object is passed from hand to hand. The performance is a reference to the film by Robert Bresson, Pickpocket, where a group of pickpocketers play with their victims. The artwork, through the actions of the hands, is an interrogation into space and time, questioning the relationship between public and private space, the establishment of communication through the body and visual exchange, and gestures between aggression and sensuality. The drawings are an integral aspect of Imhof’s work, being made before and after the performances. In the drawings, the figurative forms fuse with the abstract elements, turning the work into a stream of unstable movements. The drawing is a means to interrogate the possibility of retaining that which is in the domain of the ephemeral or to connect to the performative gestures (the drawings often being found in the place of performance). Some drawings are simple sketches, on the edge of abstraction, while in others Imhof uses felt and oil paint, creating a more somber and telluric tone. The incompleteness opens the possibility for movement to come.