Grace Schwindt: Run a Home, Build a Town, Lead a Revolution. An Exhibition in Three Acts

MARCO, Vigo, Spain

Grace Schwindt (Germany, 1979) uses a number of techniques like film, performance, sculpture in order to address issues linked to memory and the construction of social relations and power systems. Her work is a critique of the established systems, and invites audiences to consider how our socio-political structures are produced. How do we behave within these systems? Who is telling the story, for what ends and in whose interests?

Schwindt draws on the diverse fields of theatre, dance and music. Her creative process often originates within domestic settings and through these she then entrust the choice of narratives to others. In this exhibition she prompts reflection on magic, beliefs and capitalism as forms of social interaction. The starting point is an interview with a man who monitors birds for signs of oil spills. Through this, the artist prompts reflection on the danger of labour within capitalist societies: becoming aware of how the human body behaves within certain systems warns us about the fragility of it.

The relationship between capitalism and morality, the fantasy of the immortal body, the representation of the body stripped of gender roles, the sea as an idealized, political space and the allusion to worlds existing after death create different narratives which converge throughout this show, The title of the exhibition stems from a conversation with an anthropologist on one of the central figures in Galician tradition, the Moura. As women and supernatural beings, the Moura is never permitted to lead a revolution. This would entail altering the order that myths and legends are responsible for preserving.

Schwindt’s work deconstructs the power systems in order to show that nothing is neutral, since they respond to certain existing schemes within power structures. As an institutionalised system, an exhibition is not neutral either. It is conceived as a choreography in which the relationship between the visitor and the objects activate multiple subjectivities.

The exhibition also includes the world’s premiere of the live performance Madness and Other Tales, 2016, which will take place on the museum’s first floor on the opening day. Here, soprano Lisa Cassidy and Vertixe Sonora Ensemble will perform a new score written by Grace Schwindt. After the premiere, a recording of the performance will be presented at the gallery space.

The exhibition includes a retrospective cycle dedicated to the artist’s films at the Museum Library-Documentation Centre, together with a bibliographic-documentary display of catalogues and publications, a digital dossier including links to the artist’s work and to other artists of reference in Schwindt’s work.

Text Credit: MARCO, Vico, Spain