A new body of work and the largest commission to date by London and Warsaw-based artist and choreographer Alex Baczynski-Jenkins.

For his new commission at Chisenhale Gallery, Baczynski-Jenkins presents a choreography that unfolds across the duration of the exhibition, examining the relationships between affection, distraction, desire and loss. Performed by Baczynski-Jenkins’ collaborators and presented within a minimal and adaptive set, the choreography incorporates two interwoven temporal formats: fortnightly ‘Episodes’ on Thursday evenings, followed by extended ‘Fugue’ performances every Friday to Sunday, 2-6pm.

The work traces queer affinities across social practices, art forms and timeframes, in which bodies simultaneously experience pleasure and deficit. Here, dance, gesture, sound and spoken word contribute to an embodied vocabulary through which the performers navigate intimate and fragmentary exchanges, reflecting on the edges of subjectivity, corporeality and representation.

During the days that the gallery is closed to the public, Baczynski-Jenkins and his collaborators rehearse and develop the next Episode, transforming the gallery into both a performance space and a live production house.

This commission develops Baczynski-Jenkins’ interest in negotiations of desire and the materiality of gestures, as well as the stagings and affections of queer commons.  

Exhibition opening hours:

Episodes:
The tremble, Thursday 19 January, 7pm
The symptom, Thursday 2 February, 7pm
The swell, Thursday 16 February, 7pm
The hole together, Thursday 2 March, 7pm

Fugues:
Every Friday-Sunday 2-6pm

Alex Baczynski-Jenkins (born 1987, London) lives and works in Warsaw and London. He has presented works at Swiss Institute Contemporary Art, New York; Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź, (all 2016); David Roberts Art Foundation, London; Block Universe, London; Sophiensaele Theatre, Berlin; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Cricoteka, Krakow, (all 2015); and X-Apartments, Homeworks, Beirut (2013). Baczynski-Jenkins was UK Associate Artist at Delfina Foundation, 2015 and 2016. He is the co-founder of artist-run project space Kem in Warsaw.