Permanent Collection is an ongoing live action, constructed around the notion of a permanent collection. At Kunsthalle Wien Romanian artist Manuel Pelmuş explores the possibility of a collection based on performative and collectively elaborated gestures and actions. The work is enacted by a group of performers who transform and re- mediate art-historical references, cultural artifacts, contexts, events, texts, and gestures using only the body as a medium.
Manuel Pelmuş uses this kind of enactment as a performative strategy which delves into the context of specific places and institutions, moving freely between strict classification categories and notions
of ownership, suggesting the possibility of an embodied, commonly shared heritage. At Kunsthalle Wien, Permanent Collection is performed continuously for four hours each day, simultaneously – literally moving together – with a dancer in Timișoara, Romania, at the Museum of Public Transportation. Although there is no visible link between the two spaces, the knowledge of their shared movements connects audiences across the two cities thus opening a territory of participation. For this iteration Permanent Collection proposes many instances of the body as a site of resilience and agency. It embodies the political idea that when one acts alone, the act is always animated by the production of others, even if they do not share the same time or place.
The ongoing action is installed in the ground floor gallery of Kunsthalle Wien and in the semi-public hallways and in-between spaces, shared by several institutions within Museumsquartier Wien and leading to the entrance of Kunsthalle Wien. The visitors can spend whatever amount of time they like with the work, being able to leave and to come back at any moment. There is no beginning and no end.
All images ©BeniaminBoar
9th – 15th October 2021
Concept: Manuel Pelmuş
Performers: Beniamin Boar, Ezra Fieremans, Jack Hauser, Sabina Holzer, Mihai Mihalcea, Mzamo Nondlwana, Elizabeth Ward