Maria Hassabi’s Plastic features dancers moving at a glacial pace in an extended choreographed loop, oscillating between motion and stillness. It will be performed daily at MoMA during public hours from 21 February until 20 March 2016.
Occupying the staircase leading from the ground floor into the MoMA’s Marron Atrium, the atrium itself, and the staircase between the fourth- and fifth-floor Painting and Sculpture Galleries, Plastic – a commissioned performance and exhibition which terms with a live installation – explores the tension between stillness and sustained movement. Through the use of prolonged duration, Plastic examines the blurred lines between still image, sculptural object, and video loop, and creates an iconic tableau of a body simultaneously resting, falling, and in a state of transition.
Maria Hassabi (Cyprus, 1973) is a New York-based artist and choreographer. Over the years she has developed a distinct choreographic practice involved with the relation of the body to the still image and sculptural object. Her works draw their strength from the tension between the human subject and the artistic object-the dancer as a performer and as a physical entity.
images © 2015 The Museum of Modern Art, New York | Photo by Julieta Cervantes