ALEX SCHWEDER
7 MINUTES
Thursday, November 7 - Opening Reception + Performance 7 pm
Saturday, November 9, 16, 23 Performances 12 - 6 pm
OPUS Projects is pleased to present Alex Schweder’s second performance at OPUS Project Space –
7 Minutes, at 526 West 26th Street #705. An opening reception and performance will be held on Thursday, November 7, 6-8pm. Additional performances will be held Saturday, November 9, 16 and 23 from 12-6 pm.
In 2007, The New York Times published an article entitled ‘For The Brain Remembering Is Like Reliving’. Dutch Neuroscientists had evidence to prove that the act of recollection is not significantly different, in terms of the crests and falls of brainwaves and shooting of electro neurons, to the act of doing.
Perhaps inuitively, we know that there is a mental capacity to relive spaces, experiences and conversations without the dissonance of representation. In psychology, psychoanalysis and neurology, the memories of spaces and activities in our past dictate our actions in the present. The field of psychogeography is founded on the spatial effects of places and movements through space and psychoanalysis is based on the premise that the suppression of feelings from the past can emerge unconsciously in the reconstruction of the past, through writing or discussion.
The site of the exhibition, the traditional site of display and representation is the field of operation for this 'act of reliving' for artist and architect Alex Schweder. Schweder’s work deals precisely with possibility that spaces are scripted and informed by bodies and occupation. That the boundaries between them are permeable and behavioural patterns can be manipulated with careful intervention.
In this unique work held in the Opus Projects Space in New York for five days, the artist will be working with the architecture of the space – using the walls, doors, memories, history and conversation to script, utilise and design the space and through strategic means, transform the reading and semiotics of space for the visitor.
In seven minutes the intention of the artist will become clear.
Further performances will take place Saturday 9th, 16th and 23rd 12-6pm.
This project is generously supported by The Graham Foundation and OPUS Project Space.