Maria Hassabi
CANCELLED
June 7, 2023–June 7, 2023XING, Parco San Pellegrino - Via di Casaglia, Bologna
Wednesday 7 June at 7.30 pm Xing presents the Italian premiere of CANCELLED, a performance by Maria Hassabi, in the hills of San Pellegrino Park in Bologna. The event is a new Hole by Xing.
CANCELLED, a performative work by Maria Hassabi for four female performers, moves within a soundscape that emphasizes an endless lifespan. The choreography utilizes Hassabi’s signature style of stillness and deceleration, and displays representational female poses based on mannerisms throughout history. The use of verticality and frontality create a form of resistance both as a metaphor and as a reality, reflecting on ideas that are directly related to the work’s title. CANCELLED being meticulously crafted, evokes and questions the subtle interchanges of power between subjects.
Since the early 2000s Hassabi has carved a unique artistic practice based on the relationship between the live body, the still image, and the sculptural object. Hassabi’s works reflect on concepts of time and the human figure, while employing a variety of media to emphasize the complexity of formal organization. In most of Hassabi’s works the performing body is the main subject, often embedded within imposing installations. Through meticulously crafting her material in a constant negotiation between the body’s relation to gravity, time and space, reveals the physical side effects of labor, anchoring both dancers’ and viewers’ awareness to the present moment. The initial invitation of a spectacle exhausts itself, and a common corporeality and radical intimacy is exposed.
Maria Hassabi (b. Cyprus) is an artist and choreographer working with live performance, installation, sculpture, photography and video. Over the years she has developed a distinct choreographic practice involved with the relation of the body to the image, defined by sculptural physicality and extended duration. Her works draw their strength from the tension between the human subject and the artistic object, the dancer as a performer and as a physical entity. Her works are presented in theaters, museums, galleries and public-spaces worldwide including: LUMA Arles (2022); OGR, Torino (2022); Secession, Vienna (2021); Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis (2019); MUDAM, Luxenberg (2019); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018); K20, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2017-18); OCC Stegi Athens (2017); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2017); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2016); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2015); The Kitchen, New York (2019, 2016, 2013, 2011, 2006); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2015); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2014); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva (2012); Performance Space 122, New York (2007, 2009); FRONT Triennial, Cleveland (2022); HELLERAU Theater Festival, Dresden (2022); ob/scene Festival, Seoul (2022); Museion, Bolzano (2021); River to River Festival, NY (2021, 2017, 2014, 2012); Gropius Bau, Berlin (2020); Performa, NY (2019, 2013, 2009); Live Arts Week, Bologna (MAMbo 2013, ex Galleria d’Arte Moderna 2016); Serralves Museum, Porto (2019, 2015); documenta14, Kassel (2017); Venice Art Biennale (2013); Crossingthe Line Festival, NY (2016, 2011, 2009); Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels (2017, 2016, 2014); ArtSonje, Seoul (2015); steirischer herbst, Graz (2014); Panorama Festival, Rio de Janeiro (2012). In 2013 she represented Republic of Cyprus as part of the Cypriot and Lithuanian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Art Biennale. www.mariahassabi.com
Hole is a new format that Xing experiments occupying and activating non-institutional places as a temporary redefinition of a public space.
Where
Hole 44°28’50.6″N 11°18’36.3″E
Parco San Pellegrino – Via di Casaglia – Bologna
How to reach
The park can be reached on foot from Villa Spada on the CAI 914 path
Free access
