Performance Course Visiting Artist Lecture #2
Bianca Baldi
The Parable of the Sunfish
“I am very happy to continue our ‘Performance Course Visiting Artist Lecture’ tradition, this time with Bianca Baldi. Having known her quite some time yet never seen her exhibitions in person, I have grown my curiosity over the years not only about her take on identity, Western European imperial history, and how the skin plays a crucial role and some creatures have beyond-allegorical potentials in those contexts, but also about her actions and gestures in the process of developing her projects. Baldi responded to my invitation with an unexpected offer: as part of her presentation she will enact a pilot version of the work she has been developing, which actually takes the form of a lecture performance.”
Yuki Okumura (PhD researcher / tutor of the Performance course)
About Bianca Baldi
Bianca Baldi (b. South Africa) in an artist who lives and works in Brussels. In her work she deals with the role of narrative as a means of knowledge production in both fictional and historical contexts. She is interested in the staging of identity and history and looks at these themes in photography, film, writing and publishing, which she often combines in the exhibition format as installations. She is currently a PhD Researcher at Sint Lucas Antwerpen. Selected solo exhibitions include Cameo (Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, 2021), Versipellis (Superdeals, Brussels, 2018), Eyes in the Back of Your Head (Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Hamburg, 2017), Pure Breaths (Swimming Pool, Sofia, 2016) and Zero Latitude (Goethe-Institut Johannesburg, 2014). Selected group exhibitions include Die Zelle (Kunsthalle Bern, 2018), 11th African Biennale of Photography (Bamako, 2017), Open House (Kunstverein Braunschweig, Braunschweig, 2015) and 8th Berlin Biennale (KW Institute Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2014),
www.biancabaldi.net
About the Performance Course at the Academy
Inaugurated in 2022, the Performance Course is an elective course for the 3rd year bachelor students of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, tutored by the PhD researcher Yuki Okumura. Aiming at opening up one's working process to chance through instructed actions after conceptual art, it focuses on the artist's doing rather than showing, exploring performance as a way of self-reflection rather than that of self-expression.
Image: Bianca Baldi, Play-White, 2019, detail