LADA at 3rd Venice International Performance Art Week, 2016

Ouch – Pain and Performance
A LADA screening programme 
10 – 17 December 2016
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PDF Download of full Ouch programme

“I see pain as an inevitable byproduct of interesting performance.” Dominic Johnson

LADA is a partner on the 2016 Venice International Performance Art Week curated by the artist duo VestAndPage. The theme of this year's programme is “Fragile Body – Material Body” and will feature live performances, installations, photographic and video documentation, conferences, daily round tables talks, a Study Room, a Movie Room and meetings with the participating artists, researchers and curators. 

LADA is presenting Ouch, a collection of documentation and artists’ films looking at pain and performance.  The works are not necessarily performances about pain, but in some way involve or invoke pain in their making or reading or experience – both the pain artists cause themselves within the course of their work, whether intentional or not, and the experiences of audiences as they are invited to inflict pain on artists or are subjected to pain and discomfort themselves.

The selected works feature eminent and ground breaking artists from around the world whose practices address provocative issues including the lived experiences of illness, the aging female body, cosmetic surgery, addiction, embodied public protest, animalistic impulses, blood letting, staged fights, acts of self harm and flagellation, and what can happen when you invite audiences to be complicit in performance actions. 

With Marina Abramovic, Ron Athey, Marcel.Li Antunez Roca, Franko B, Wafaa Bilal, Rocio Boliver, Cassils, Bob Flanagan, Regina Jose Galindo, jamie lewis Hadley, Nicola Hunter & Ernst Fischer, Oleg Kulik, Martin O’Brien, Kira O’Reilly, ORLAN, Petr Pavlensky.

Previous versions of Ouch have been shown at Martin O’Brien’s Discharge in January 2013 and the Wellcome Collection’s In Pursuit of Pain in July 2016.

With many thanks to all of the featured artists, Sheree Rose, and Janez Janša.