Body in Flight (Delta) by JENNIFER ALLORA and GUILLERMO CALZADILLA
performance at the US Pavillion during the 54th Venice Biennale, 2011
images © OLIVIER ZAHM, watch the video here

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Gloria is the title of the exhibition by JENNIFER ALLORA and GUILLERMO CALZADILLA that is occupying the American pavilion at this summer’s Venice Biennale. Inside the pavilion, American gymnasts perform routines on recreated business-class airline seats. The Delta seat functions as a balance beam where a young professional dancer and gymnast, bent her body in graceful movements over a the seat:

We find it interesting how each national airline tries to imagine, define and portray itself through these expensive, complicated designs that encapsulate ideas of travel, business and comfort. As sculptural objects, we think they could make interesting support structures, a base on which something happens. An influential work in this respect is BRANCUSI’s Bird in Space, and the idea of the base versus the object. The title of our Body in Flight echoes BRANCUSI’s, this time playing with the idea of a body that is actually moving.

We have developed a specific choreography for each of the seats. The form of the seats, their shapes and their scale define what kind of gymnastic routines happen. It’s basically a juxtaposition of two things that are not normally linked together. We had to find a glue, an adhesive that could join these things in a meaningful way. Language becomes a very useful means to do that. Etymologies, procedures, operations, mediums, materials – all these things become content for the work. For example, before it became gymnastics gear, the pommel horse was originally designed to teach soldiers how to mount and dismount a horse. We’re interested in the relationship to the military that these supports carry.

Among others their exhibition features a military tank turned upside down with a treadmill on top and an organ with fully functioning ATM machine programmed to play random bits of music every time a bank card is inserted.

JENNIFER ALLORA and GUILLERMO CALZADILLA met more than a decade ago as art students abroad in Florence, Italy, and have been working together ever since. They have developed a multifaceted oeuvre consisting of installations, videos, performances, social interactions, works in public space, photos, and collages. For the Biennale, the artists expand on some of the themes and methods of their earlier works, such as the relationship between art and the cultural or military history of common objects, the production and use of sound as well as the intersection of performance and sculpture.

The Venice Biennale runs through November 27, 2011.