Anthony Schrag
September 12 - October 11, 2008
Schalter is pleased to announce Classic Rock. The exhibition features an installation by British artist Anthony Schrag as well as a selection of video work documenting Schrag’s performances and interventions over the past several years. This is Schrag’s first solo presentation in Berlin.
Upon entering, Classic Rock immediately confronts visitors with a trampoline placed inside the doorframe, interfering with access to the exhibition space. Within the room however, viewers discover a shelf of beer perched precariously above the door and are invited to jump and help themselves. With the exhibition opening crowd in mind, the work draws attention to the body, the codes regulating social behavior and asks us to consider the border between the generous and the cruel or cynical.
Schrag’s work is interested in what he terms the 'body intelligent' - those innate and experiential sets of conditions that are understood phenomenologically (i.e. physically,) rather than through a lens of representational intellect and/or schooling relating to art and its contexts (i.e. mentally). As evidence of that, in his video work, we find the artist climbing things, falling, and bearing the burden of optimism literally as a cross in public. Conversely, in his museum and gallery interventions, viewers are subjected to pranks and practical jokes that test the limits of art’s preciousness.
Anthony Schrag was born in Zimbabwe and grew up in the Middle East, the UK and Canada. He has exhibited and performed throughout Europe, in Vancouver, New York, Mexico City, Beijing, and Iceland as well as across the UK and Ireland. He recently curated and organized a publication on Live Art commissioned by the Scottish Arts Council/Tramway Gallery that was published in June. He currently lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland.
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