Debut
2018
William Forsythe
At the museum’s main entrance, visitors immediately stumble across a work of art. A stone slab with an engraved text is embedded in the threshold of the entrance. The artist asks us to pause and reflect on the museum’s threshold. He asks us to walk in as if we mean it—but how does one do that, enter with conviction? What does that look like? What convinces us? What is our purpose in entering the park?
Details
- Plan number: B01
- Zone: Motion
- Title: Debut
- Creator: William Forsythe
- Date: 2018
- Material: bluestone
- Acquisition: donation by Middelheim Promotors
- Object number: MID.B.658
William Forsythe challenges viewers to move. Because his works instruct us to move in a certain way, we become more aware of our bodies, our posture, and our movements. Will you take the challenge?
American dancer and choreographer William Forsythe has been increasingly active in the visual arts since the 1990s. His “choreographic objects” direct the viewer. He explores how we move through time and space, how instructions work, how we construct knowledge through our bodies, and how kinship and empathy arise in the process.
From the same artist
William Forsythe
These texts are integrated into the park benches. William Forsythe invites you to walk a certain number of steps away from the bench, and then come back and sit down backwards with your eyes closed. Give it a try. It’s not that easy, and that’s just the point. The artist hopes visitors will connect with each other in this way, and in doing so seeks to contribute to the museum as a meeting place.
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