Festival of Minimal Actions

How do you keep a performance alive? For German artist Thomas Geiger, the answer is letting it live on through repetition. For the Festival of Minimal Actions, he re-performs actions and interventions other artists have made in the public sphere. After Brussels and Paris, he is bringing the festival to San José, Costa Rica, where he will repeat twenty-eight performances by Latin American artists for random passersby and onlookers.

Thoughts

Thoughts

The Festival of Minimal Actions is based on the principle that the work of art does not have to be performed by the artist themselves. On the contrary, most works have an inherent potential to take form independently of their authors, one that can be activated in a new social and temporal context by others.

To give life to this idea, Thomas Geiger brings artistic performances from the past into the present. By re-performing actions carried out by fellow artists, he rediscovers works of art that were made for another public and another time, giving them a new charm, impact, or reason for re-appearing in public once more.

While the random pedestrians making their way through the streets of San José may not be aware of the performances taking place before their eyes, new chapters will be written in the stories told by each piece – chapters co-written by Geiger as he performs them. With each piece colored by the time and space it takes shape in, the festival will explore the ways in which a performance never happens the same way twice.

The festival’s twenty-eight performances are based exclusively on works by artists from Central and South America. Each artist agreed to the idea of reawakening their actions in San José.

Information

Information

Geiger will carry out the twenty-eight performances between March 3rd and March 17th in the streets of San José. The Festival of Minimal Actions has previously taken place in Brussels (2014) and Paris (2015).

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Each performance will be condensed into a descriptive statement and printed onto a large flag. As each one happens, its respective flag will be raised along Despacio’s facade and made visible to anyone making their way down San José’s central avenue.

Artists who provided a performance for the Festival of Minimal Actions:
Darwin Andino (HND), Clarissa Baumann (BRA), Javier Calvo (CR), Eder Castillo (MX), Camila Come Caramelo (GTM), Fabiola Carranza (CR), Sergio Rojas Chaves (CR), Natalia Dominguez (SLV), Leonardo Gonzalez (HND), Silvio De Gracia (ARG), Alejandro de la Guerra (NIC), Jonathan Harker (PA), Karlo Ibarra (PR), Maria Karanzi (CHL), Alejandro Leonhardt (CHL), Javier Ramírez-Nadie (CR), Jesus “Bubu” Negrón (PR), Inês Nin (BRA), Daniela Medina Poch (CHL), Javier González Pesce (CHL), Max Provenzano (VEN), Pilar Quinteros (CHL), Anna Rosa Rodríguez (VEN), Crack Rodriguez (SLV), Armando Rosales (VEN), Diego Sagastume (GTM), Fredy Solano (SLV), and Adan Vallecillo (HND)

Alongside the festival, Thomas Geiger will present a Library in Residence. The selection of publications called Adoptees and Other Misfits deals with the issue of art documentation in an often radical or experimental way.

Images by the artist and Sperling Munich. Boxing performance in collaboration with Marcel Meury.