This spring, Sotheby’s in London will open up its New Bond Street galleries to the revolutionary British dancer and choreographer Michael Clark. Memorably described as “the most brilliant and worst behaved” alumni of the Royal Ballet School, Clark’s performances have been marked by a mixture of technical rigour and experimentation; combining intense and fine-tuned choreography with elements of punk, Dada and popular culture.
Clark has broken new ground for dance through collaborations with artists including Sarah Lucas, Leigh Bowery, Peter Doig and Alexander McQueen, and reached new audiences through his company’s electrifying performances at venues including the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall and the Venice Biennale. For Contemporary Curated, Clark curates a selection of works which explore the “ongoing dance” between art and choreography, including pieces by Sarah Lucas, Rebecca Warren, Günther Förg, Tom Wesselmann and Liam Gillick. The exhibition will be on view from 8 April, ahead of the auction on 12 April.
“From an early age I found sanctuary at the art gallery in Aberdeen. It was a place that I discovered other worlds in, beyond the one I lived in at that time. A lot of my friends happen to be artists and that often leads to collaboration, or at least exchange of ideas. The artists in my life have given me a different perspective on what I do. I became aware there was this other world beyond the dance world, and artists I have collaborated with have made me re-examine my dysfunctional methods, look at things differently.” – Michael Clark
Further details below and a press release attached. High resolution images are available to download here.
Michael Clark and our contemporary specialists will be hosting a breakfast and private view of the exhibition on Friday 7 April at 9.30am. I look forward to hearing from you should you be able to join us.
Best wishes,
Toby
About Michael Clark
Michael Clark is one of the world’s leading choreographers and dancers and has been described as “the most brilliant and worst behaved” alumni of the Royal Ballet School. After his classical training at the Royal Ballet School in London, Clark joined the Rambert Dance Company in 1979, and it was there that he began to broaden and explore the possibilities of performance. Whilst at Rambert, Clark attended a summer school with Merce Cunningham and John Cage which led to a renewed fascination in pushing the boundaries of dance.
In 1984, Clark founded his eponymous company, with whom he has performed at venues around the world, including galleries and museums. Clark’s pioneering vision of creativity has seen him draw influence from Dada, performance art, rock music and fashion – from street punk, to haute couture – in dances that are transgressive and rule-bending. In 2010–2011 he spent seven weeks in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern during his Yvonne Rainer-inspired residency. Here, he invited members of the public to participate in his choreography. This was followed by a four-week takeover of an entire floor of theWhitney Biennial in New York in 2012. Clark has been an Artistic Associate at the Barbican since 2005, and in 2014, was awarded a CBE for services to dance in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
MELISSA HETHERINGTON AND BENJAMIN WARBIS PHOTOGRAPHED BY HUGO GLENDINNING, 2012; HARRY ALEXANDER PHOTOGRAPHED BY JAKE WALTERS.
Whilst Clark has earned the labels ‘rebel’, ‘iconoclast’ and ‘punk’, his practice in the field of dance cannot be classified in such simple terms. His work is undoubtedly experimental, but Clark’s ability to move between visual mediums and draw on varied cultural references has ensured a dynamism to the work he produces that most would struggle to emulate. His collaborators are artists, musicians, designers, and filmmakers such as Leigh Bowery, Peter Doig and Charles Atlas. In 1991, he choreographed and danced the role of Caliban in Prospero’s Books, directed by Peter Greenaway, with whom he worked on several projects, and in 2001 he collaborated with Sarah Lucas in Before and After: The Fall, for which the artist created a mobile structure in the shape of an arm that interacted with the dancers on stage. Lucas’ Ones Knob is offered in the sale.
Other creative collaborations include an invitation by Alexander McQueen and Nick Knight in 2004 to work on Blade of Light for SHOWstudio, a project which saw choreography, couture and film on an equal footing. Clark’s performances are characterised by technically vigorous and dynamic sequences, against bold, graphic set design. Musically, soundtracks are diverse, with performances often set to music by David Bowie, Pulp, The Fall and Kraftwerk.
In his selection of works from the Contemporary Curated sale, Clark has eloquently mirrored the varied historical references that influence his own artistic output. Whilst he was attracted by compositional elements such as density, weight and abstraction in works such as Brazil Kalmar Text by Liam Gillick, andUntitled 743/87 by Günther Förg, he also responded to the physicality and sensuality of works such as Tom Wesselmann’s Study for Sunset Nude and Sigmar Polke’s Untitled.