Saturdays Live: Megan Rooney, Last Days. Last Days. Last Days.
Artist Megan Rooney created an immersive, durational performance in the context of Duane Hanson’s exhibition at the Serpentine North Gallery.
Last days. Last Days. Last Days. is a performance work devised for — and responding to — the context of American sculptor Duane Hanson’s exhibition at the Serpentine North Gallery. Over the entire day, the artist and a number of performers created a space of spoken text, video imagery and choreographed movement. Last Days. Last Days. Last Days. mapped a new geography of language and image upon the existing exhibition, juxtaposing beautifully banal landscapes shot in Florida near Hanson’s former studio with the works in the exhibition. Meanwhile, the artist read an epic poem combining an array of language sources, both appropriated from the media and originally composed in the gaps of its absence. Rooney’s work responded to Hanson’s hyperreal figures and the context of their production, exploring themes that range from the female voice to the reproduction of experience through narrative. It interrogates the instability of subjective points of view and bodies in the gallery space and beyond, pitching the uncanny physicality of the artworks against the encoded and distributed liveness of the performers’ bodies.
With thanks to Nefeli Skarmea for her advice with the choreography. Performed by Fiona Harvey, Mathilde Lepage Bagatta, Chris Machari, Danilo Moroni, Megan Rooney and Candide Sauvaux.
Equipment kindly loaned by Carroll/Fletcher.
Megan Rooney is a Canadian artist based in London. Recent exhibitions include Okie Dog on Santa Monica, Almanac Inn, Turin, (2015); Till the stars turn cold, Glasgow Sculpture Studios (2015); Tilia Americana, Opening Times Digital Commissions (2014); Der Leone have Sept Cabeça (with Quinn Latimer), CRAC, Alsace (2014); Pleasure and Charity — sharing in the experience, Art Gallery of Ontario (2014). O labor, Sister Continent (with Quinn Latimer), Frieze evening of performances at David Roberts Art Foundation (2014).
Saturdays Live explore ideas and practices connected to Serpentine’s exhibitions and programmes through talks, readings and participatory actions
