Coco Fusco:
Antigone Is Not Available Right Now
Antigone Is Not Available Right Now
English
10.12.23 Artist talk after the show
Sunday, 10.12.2023 | Audience talk after the performance in the Hochzeitssaal.
Due to the Christmas market in Sophienstraße, the Sophiensæle cannot be approached by car on december 9 and 10, 2023.
Since the 1990s, Cuban-American artist Coco Fusco has been a key voice in discourses on racial representation, postcolonial theory, feminism, and institutional critique. Her practice encompasses performative, video, archival, and textual work. As part of her first major retrospective at KW Institute of Contemporary Art, her new stage work Antigone Is Not Available Right Now will premiere at Sophiensæle.
Departing from the most widely staged tragedy of Ancient Greece by Sophocles, Fusco explores the conditions for change in times of political crisis: Antigone's defiance of her uncle Creon’s authority has made her an allegorical figure for the struggles against fascism, communism, apartheid, military dictatorships, and police violence. In Antigone Is Not Available Right Now, she has re-established contact with the world of the living. Represented by her literary agent, played by Coco Fusco, Antigone receives multiple requests to use her likeness by people from around the world who want to stand up to tyranny. Fusco acts as a go-between, deciding when to connect these characters with Oedipus’ infamous daughter and helping Antigone to assess the validity and quality of the requests.
Antigone Is Not Available Right Now is commissioned by KW Institute for Contemporary Art and presented in collaboration with Sophiensaele.
The performance is part of the exhibition Coco Fusco – Tomorrow, I Will Become an Island (14.09.2023–07.01.2024) at KW Institute of Contemporary Art. The exhibition is funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). Funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media).
If any questions remain from the following information, please feel free to contact Hannah Aldinger at barrierefreiheit@sophiensaele.com or 030 27 89 00 35. Please note that details may change by the day of the event. Therefore, if you find out after you have purchased your ticket that the performance is no longer accessible to you, you can contact us for a ticket return at ticketing@sophiensaele.com or 030 27 89 00 45 until 5 business days after the event (Monday through Friday between 10am and 6pm).
Duration
- 60 Minutes
Language
- English spoken language
Light
- The lighting situation on stage is bright.
- In some scenes video projections are used (fragments of videos with people in interaction/dialogue).
Audience area
- The last row of the bleachers has chairs. In the rows in front, there are flat seat cushions on the bleachers.
- 2 beanbag seats bookable according to availability
- 2 wheelchair seats bookable according to availability
- The lighting situation in the audience is relatively dark.
- There will be an audience talk following the performance on 10 December in the Hochzeitssaal.
Arrival
- Due to the Christmas market in Sophienstraße, the Sophiensaele cannot be approached by car on december 9 and 10. Further information on how to get there and parking can be found here.
Early boarding
If, for artistic reasons, the door to the auditorium does not open until very shortly before the performance begins, there is the option of early boarding.
Tickets
- Reservations can be made via the ticket telephone at 030 283 52 66, Monday to Friday from 4pm–6pm
- Via the online ticket shop
- At the box office
You can also find more information about accessibility here.
Text, Direction and Production: Coco Fusco
Videography: Ryan Wang, Luis Eligio Pérez
Sound: Rosana Caban
Editing: Jessie Stead
Animations: Melissa Brown, Brian Luna
Props: Sandra Cordero
Cuban masks: Julio Llypiz Casal
Make-up: Layana Flachs
Composition and arrangement Blind Man’s Rant: Jessie Stead
Curator (KW Institute for Contemporary Art): Léon Kruijswijk
Antigone Is Not Available Right Now is commissioned by KW Institute for Contemporary Art and presented in collaboration with Sophiensæle. Media partners: Arts of the Working Class, Berlin Art Link, Das Wetter, Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.
Coco Fusco is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. She has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Latinx Art Award, a Fulbright Fellowship and the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. Fusco's performances and videos have been shown at the 56th Venice Berlinale, Frieze Special Projects, Basel Unlimited, three Whitney Biennials, and several other international exhibitions. Her work is part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Walker Art Center, the Centre Pompidou, the Imperial War Museum and the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona.
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Still © Coco Fusco -
© Aurelio Fusco