The Centre of Attention was commissioned to create an exhibition for Plateaux at the Kunstlerhaus MousonTurm Frankfurt, Germany.
For Schwanengesang the gallery space meets the chapel of rest in a work that offers the audience an opportunity to rehearse one's own funeral. First the participant selects a song for the ceremony, which is downloaded from the web, then they lay on a plinth, performing death, while the song is played.
Increasing use of popular songs at funerals means one can make strong statements literally (with lyrics) or atmospherically. Here we contrast the idea of music as a shorthand for complex statements and emotional concepts with the banality of the funeral and the service.
Formally with Schwanengesang, we wanted to reverse the viewer/art-object dynamic, while allowing also a statement to be generated and examined by the audience itself.
Audience, artist, collaboration; life and death; visual, aural and performance are disrupted and recombined. References to the art genres of still life or nature morte, the Vanitas portrait, and the death mask can also be made.
With Schwanengesang the Centre of Attention functions as a pseudopodia reaching tentatively for Frankfurt, with the reminder that you must die.
Schwanengesang features works by Emi Avora, Benedict Carpenter, Simon Faithfull and Jasper Joffe.