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Events

William Forsythe, The Barre Project (Blake Works II), 2021, performed by (left to right) Brooklyn Mack, Tiler Peck, Lex Ishimoto, and Roman Mejia

Performance

The Barre Project (Blake Works II)

Thursday, March 25, and Saturday, March 27, 2021, 8pm EDT

During the pandemic William Forsythe, New York City Ballet principal dancer Tiler Peck, and online arts education platform CLI Studios came together to create a ballet performance coordinated completely via Zoom. Inspired by dancers worldwide who were unable to access formal classes but committed to sustaining themselves and their art, The Barre Project consists of five musical episodes that focus on the most primary feature of ballet training: barre. Each premiere will have live introductions and question-and-answer sessions with Forsythe and Peck. To watch the performance, register at go.clistudios.com.

William Forsythe, The Barre Project (Blake Works II), 2021, performed by (left to right) Brooklyn Mack, Tiler Peck, Lex Ishimoto, and Roman Mejia

Adam McEwen, Escape from New York, 2014 (still from “Battery Tunnel”) © Adam McEwen

Exhibition

Broadcast
Alternate Meanings in Film and Video

You’re only as young as the last time you changed your mind.
—Timothy Leary

Gagosian is pleased to present Broadcast: Alternate Meanings in Film and Video, an online exhibition of artists’ films and videos viewable exclusively on gagosian.com. The exhibition will be organized into a series of “chapters,” each lasting two weeks. The first chapter begins on Tuesday, May 19, 2020.

Broadcast: Alternate Meanings in Film and Video employs the innate immediacy of time-based art to spark reflection on the here and now, taking the words of famed psychologist and countercultural icon Timothy Leary as its starting point. 

Adam McEwen, Escape from New York, 2014 (still from “Battery Tunnel”) © Adam McEwen

Edgar Cleijne and Ellen Gallagher, Osedax, 2010 (still) © Edgar Cleijne and Ellen Gallagher

Visit

Dhaka Art Summit

February 7–15, 2020
Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka
www.dhakaartsummit.org

William Forsythe and Ellen Gallagher are participating in Dhaka Art Summit 2020: Seismic Movements. Over nine days, five hundred artists, scholars, curators, and thinkers will join in panel discussions, performances, and symposia addressing the theme: “What is a movement and how do we ignite one beyond the confines of an art exhibition?” The event is free and open to the public. 

Edgar Cleijne and Ellen Gallagher, Osedax, 2010 (still) © Edgar Cleijne and Ellen Gallagher

William Forsythe, Unsustainables, 2019 (detail), installation view, SESC Pompéia, São Paulo © William Forsythe. Photo: Ricardo Ferreira

Performance

William Forsythe
December Dance 19

December 5–8, 2019
Concertgebouw, Bruges, Belgium
www.concertgebouw.be

At the invitation of Needcompany, William Forsythe has created two new short works for December Dance 19, the international dance festival curated by the multidisciplinary dance company. To attend the event, purchase tickets at www.concertgebouw.be.

William Forsythe, Unsustainables, 2019 (detail), installation view, SESC Pompéia, São Paulo © William Forsythe. Photo: Ricardo Ferreira

William Forsythe, The Fact of Matter, 2009 © William Forsythe. Photo: Liza Voll

Tour

Water Sundays
Art in Action

Sunday, December 8, 2019, 1:30pm
Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
www.qagoma.qld.gov.au

On select Sundays, visitors can explore the Water exhibition on view at QAGOMA through tours for kids, talks, hands-on workshops, and more. On Sunday, December 8, curatorial manager Geraldine Kirrihi Barlow will explore William Forsythe’s The Fact of Matter (2009), which is featured in the show. The event is free to attend with exhibition admission.

William Forsythe, The Fact of Matter, 2009 © William Forsythe. Photo: Liza Voll

William Forsythe, Alignigung II, 2017 (still) © William Forsythe

Performance

William Forsythe

November 29–December 1, 2019
PACT Zollverein, Essen, Germany
www.pact-zollverein.de

To mark a new piece of choreography by Rauf “RubberLegz” Yasit and Brigel Gjoka, William Forsythe is staging a film and installation program that celebrates his long-standing relationship with the duo, featuring the presentation of a new choreographic object (as Forsythe terms his works), called Heaven and Hell. The event is free and open to the public.

William Forsythe, Alignigung II, 2017 (still) © William Forsythe

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Museum Exhibitions

William Forsythe, Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time No. 2, 2013 © William Forsythe. Photo: Dominik Mentzos

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William Forsythe in
Paradise Kortrijk 2021

June 26–October 24, 2021
Various locations in Kortrijk, Belgium
www.paradisekortrijk.be

Paradise Kortrijk, the second Kortrijk Triennial, places interactive works by thirty-two Belgian and international artists in various indoor and outdoor sites throughout the city. Born out of a desire to reflect on how to construct a better society, the festival presents myriad interpretations of the utopian dream of paradise. Work by William Forsythe is included.

William Forsythe, Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time No. 2, 2013 © William Forsythe. Photo: Dominik Mentzos

William Forsythe, Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time No. 2, 2013 © William Forsythe. Photo: Dominik Mentzos

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William Forsythe
Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time No. 2

July 4–19, 2021
Freespace, West Kowloon Art Park, Hong Kong
www.westkowloon.hk

William Forsythe’s interactive work Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time No. 2 (2013) is on view in Asia for the first time. This immense installation is a field of moving pendulums through which visitors are invited to move at will. In doing so, they generate an infinite range of individual choreographies. The work is accompanied by three of Forsythe’s films: Alignigung (2016), Lectures from Improvisation Technologies (2011), and Solo (1997).

William Forsythe, Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time No. 2, 2013 © William Forsythe. Photo: Dominik Mentzos

Installation view, William Forsythe: The Sense of Things, Kunsthaus Zürich, April 23–May 24, 2021. Artwork © William Forsythe. Photo: © Franca Candrian, Kunsthaus Zürich

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William Forsythe
The Sense of Things

April 23–May 24, 2021
Kunsthaus Zürich
www.kunsthaus.ch

William Forsythe’s The Sense of Things is the first artistic intervention in the Kunsthaus Zürich’s new museum building, designed by David Chipperfield. In Forsythe’s acoustic work, deconsecrated church bells of different sizes, pitches, and timbres are activated in a contrapuntal composition that emanates across the new extension, encouraging visitors to build a direct relationship with the architecture by observing how the sounds change as they move through the space.

Installation view, William Forsythe: The Sense of Things, Kunsthaus Zürich, April 23–May 24, 2021. Artwork © William Forsythe. Photo: © Franca Candrian, Kunsthaus Zürich

William Forsythe, Unsustainables, 2019 (detail), installation view, SESC Pompéia, São Paulo © William Forsythe. Photo: Ricardo Ferreira

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William Forsythe in
The Time of Work

March 14–May 10, 2020
Z33 Kunstcentrum, Hasselt, Belgium
www.z33.be

In the group exhibition The Time of Work, artists direct the visitor’s gaze around the building. The artistic interventions aim to enhance, challenge, and question Z33’s architecture. Work by William Forsythe is included.

William Forsythe, Unsustainables, 2019 (detail), installation view, SESC Pompéia, São Paulo © William Forsythe. Photo: Ricardo Ferreira

William Forsythe, Doing and Undergoing, 2016/2020, installation view, Dancing Machines, Frac
Franche-Comté, Besançon, France © William Forsythe

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William Forsythe in
Dancing Machines

February 2–April 26, 2020
Frac Franche-Comté, Besançon, France
www.frac-franche-comte.fr

Performance artists have long made their own bodies works of art, and choreographers often borrow from the field of contemporary art. Dancing Machines questions the way in which performance art and choreography interact and explores how these artists represent and show the body today. Work by William Forsythe is included.

William Forsythe, Doing and Undergoing, 2016/2020, installation view, Dancing Machines, Frac Franche-Comté, Besançon, France © William Forsythe

William Forsythe, The Fact of Matter, 2009 © William Forsythe. Photo: Liza Voll

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William Forsythe in
Water

December 7, 2019–April 26, 2020
Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
www.qagoma.qld.gov.au

Water invites visitors to explore the vital element, which sustains all forms of life on earth. From immersive experiences to smaller-scale treasures, the exhibition highlights the importance of water and aims to spark conversations about the environmental and social challenges we face today. Work by William Forsythe is included.

William Forsythe, The Fact of Matter, 2009 © William Forsythe. Photo: Liza Voll

William Forsythe, City of Abstracts, 2000, installation view, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany © William Forsythe

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William Forsythe

February 5–December 1, 2019
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
www.museum-folkwang.de

William Forsythe is presenting four exhibitions at the Museum Folkwang over the course of 2019. The first project is the interactive video work City of Abstracts (2000), which is installed in the museum’s foyer from February until the end of May. As visitors approach the piece their images are projected onto a screen, inviting interaction as their bodies are melded into a dance of stretched and spiraled forms. The second project is Human Writes Drawings, on view for the month of June, which shows Forsythe succeeding in transferring his choreographic exploration of human rights into the genre of drawing. The third, Aviariation, on view in one of the museum’s courtyards starting June 29, sets the branches of trees planted there swaying, the leaves rustling. Besides engaging viewers, the movements have an effect on the local bird population—as the title suggests. In November, Forsythe presents the fourth and final part, Acquisition/Körperschaft, a work, featuring two dancers, that is at once performative and participatory, and that he is adapting specially for Museum Folkwang.

William Forsythe, City of Abstracts, 2000, installation view, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany © William Forsythe

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William Forsythe in
Sinnesrausch: Kunst und Bewegung

May 23–October 13, 2019
OÖ Kulturquartier, Linz, Austria
www.sinnesrausch.at

This exhibition includes large installations on the roof and in the great hall that must be “actively” perceived by visitors in a playful way, not only with the eyes but with the whole body. Work by William Forsythe is included.

William Forsythe, Backwards, 2019 © William Forsythe. Photo: Blickachsen Foundation

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William Forsythe in
Blickachsen 12

May 26–October 6, 2019
Various venues, Bad Homburg and Frankfurt Rhine Main, Germany
www.blickachsen.com

The twelfth edition of Blickachsen, a biennial exhibition of sculpture and installations, focuses attention on the interplay between contemporary art and its historical surroundings. The exhibition aims to show works by both young artists and renowned sculptors. Work by William Forsythe is included.

William Forsythe, Backwards, 2019 © William Forsythe. Photo: Blickachsen Foundation

William Forsythe, City of Abstracts, 2000 © William Forsythe. Photo: Dominik Mentzos

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William Forsythe
Choreographic Objects

May 24–September 15, 2019
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
www.mfah.org

Since the 1990s, parallel to his stage productions, William Forsythe has developed installations, sculptures, and films that he calls Choreographic Objects. Blurring the lines between performance, sculpture, and installation, these works invite the viewer to engage with the fundamental ideas of choreography.

William Forsythe, City of Abstracts, 2000 © William Forsythe. Photo: Dominik Mentzos

Installation view, William Forsythe: Objetos coreográficos, SESC Pompéia, São Paulo, March 27–July 28, 2019 © William Forsythe. Photo: Jackson Matos

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William Forsythe
Objetos coreográficos

March 27–July 28, 2019
SESC Pompéia, São Paulo
www.sescsp.org.br

This exhibition presents eleven works by William Forsythe from his Choreographic Objects series. The show includes a new work created specifically for this presentation, Unsustainables, São Paulo (2019).

Installation view, William Forsythe: Objetos coreográficos, SESC Pompéia, São Paulo, March 27–July 28, 2019 © William Forsythe. Photo: Jackson Matos

William Forsythe, White Bouncy Castle, 1997 © William Forsythe

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William Forsythe
White Bouncy Castle

July 11–28, 2019
Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona
es.teatrebarcelona.com

William Forsythe’s White Bouncy Castle is a choreographic space designed to accommodate spectators. Inside, the people who visit it are invited to fall and bounce, to feel their bodies completely destabilized to the sound of a musical composition created by Joel Ryan.

William Forsythe, White Bouncy Castle, 1997 © William Forsythe

See all Museum Exhibitions for William Forsythe