Drawing A Line Through Landscape
Commissioned by documenta14 2017 and Supported by Piramal Art Foundation, Galleria Continua and Chatterjee & Lal
Curated by Adam Szmczyk, Natasha Ginwala and Michelangelo Corsaro
Performance Partnerships and Interventions in
-Tsarino by Tsarino Foundation
-Sofia by Ivo Ivanov and Sofia Underground Performance Art Festival 2017
-Gorna Lipnitsa by Madhavi Gore and Jana Prepeluh
-Gorna Lipnitza by Folklorna Grupa and Old School Residency
-Budapest by Ivan Angelus and the Budapest Contemporary Dance Academy
Costume Design by Loise Braganza
Set Design by Aradhana Seth
Film by Sophie Winqvist
Song Writer Gautam Sharma
Music by Ranjit Arapurkal
Driver and On-site Production by Stephen Frick
Documentation and On-site Production by Madhavi Gore
Project Assistant Shaira Sequeira
Van Sponsored by Volks Wagen
ATHENS
IOANNINA
TSARINO, SOFIA, GORNA LIPNITSIA
COZIA
BUDAPEST
STRUVO
BRATISLAVA
KASSEL
AUDIO FROM THE REHEARSALS
In Athens, a tempestuous muddy sea and a cluster of rolling clouds gather on the walls of a former tavern as a panoramic mural. For Drawing a Line through Landscape he sets forth to traverse the nearly 3,000 kilometers between Athens and Kassel: crossing the mountainous landscape of Greece, passing the deserted villages, former soviet towns, and orthodox monasteries in Bulgaria, lingering briefly in the verdant wilderness of Romania’s Cozia National Park, at gatherings on public squares, or in the art spaces of Sofia, Budapest, and Bratislava, where he is joined by fellow artists and choreographers.
His tent is a temporary studio and domicile—reminiscent of travelling theatres, where improvisational encounters unfold in communal relation. The artist serenades the cities and towns that he enters much as a lover does, transitioning through states of exuberance, intoxication, rejection, and fatigue. This continued journey remains enmeshed in the trails of centuries-old nomadism as well as the migratory passages that are still being carved out—ultimately the zigzagging route is not simply a South-North or East-West binary movement but rather the reflection of a complex microcosm of dispersed selfhood, abandonment, economic austerity, and territorial violence in today’s Europe.
—Natasha Ginwala
If there is something unresolved in Drawing a Line Through Landscape, is the inherent fragility of the landscape that is discussed there. The heroic gesture of the artist who wants to paint “a 3000 kilometer landscape” has to come to terms with the political fragmentation of what it wants to join together. Whereas Chopra’s project attempts the unification of different countries into one single landscape, any possible desire for coexistence is constantly challenged by political forces that make use of divisions to gain momentum.
—Michelangelo Corsaro