Direct experience is an essential component in the work of Tino Sehgal. Over the past seven years he has been known for making art without actually making any objects. His working method involves organizing and instructing people (adults, teenagers or children) to use their body and/or voice to construct “situations” that can be observed and experienced. Arguing for a conception of art that ventures beyond its own materiality, Sehgal’s work proposes a dynamic take on the idea of the “expanded concept of art,” arguing for a process of production that revolves around exchanges and transformations of thoughts, as he has said, “rethinking the notion of a product as a transformation of actions not as a transformation of materials.” For his solo exhibition at the Walker Art Center, Sehgal will present five pieces: Instead of allowing some thing to rise up to your face dancing bruce and dan and other things (2000), This is good (2001), This is propaganda (2002), This is new (2003) and This is about (2003) in various sites throughout the building.
Tino Sehgal was born in 1976 in London and currently lives in Berlin. After first studying political economics and dance, he began presenting his work in museums and galleries. His work has been exhibited at Tate Britain and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Palais de Tokyo and the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Kunsthaus Bregenz and Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany; Fundação Serralves, Porto; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto and Moderna Museet, Stockholm. He was nominated for the prestigious Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and was one of two artists representing Germany at the 2005 Venice Biennale. His solo exhibition at the Walker Art Center will be the largest presentation of the artist work in the United States.
Organized by Yasmil Raymond