Danai Anesiadou | Asco | Erick Beltrán | Lygia Clark | Joachim Koester | Patrizio Di Massimo | Ioana Nemes | Amalia Pica
Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7
9 - 25 March 2012, open daily, 11am - 7pm
private view Thursday 8 March, 7-9pm
ritualwithoutmyth.rca.ac.uk
Ritual without Myth is an exhibition that considers the potential of ritual as a catalyst for transformative experience. Including newly commissioned and existing contemporary works, the exhibition explores art practices that combine cultural repertoires (that is aggregates of actions and symbols that structure social systems), thus freeing them from the authority of a unitary, dominant myth. As Suely Rolnik notes, that absence of an absolute and stable identification with any repertoire is a condition from which hybrid cultural forms can emerge, to undermine a dominant ideology.
The idea of "rituals without myth" was used by the artist Lygia Clark to describe her work, in particular her project Structuring the Self (1976-1988): a therapeutic practice carried out in one-to-one sessions that explored the affective potential of her tactile Relational Objects through the mind and body of participants.
Ritual without Myth is curated by the graduating students on the Royal College of Art's MA Curating Contemporary Art Programme: Daniela Berger, Laura Clarke, Sabel Gavaldon, Katie Guggenheim, Lily Hall, Egle Kulbokaite, Mette Kjaergaard Praest, Laura Smith, Borbála Soós, Elizabeth Stanton. Graphics by Rustan Söderling.
