alexandra bachzetsis
1974, Zurich, Switzerland
Choreographer and visual artist, Alexandra Bachzetsis creates spaces at the intersection of dance, performance, visual art and theater - in which the body manifests as artistic and critical apparatus. Her work investigates the choreographies of the body and how culture provides source material for our gestures, expressions and fantasies; through an interdisciplinary approach she examines the influence of ‘popular’ or ‘commercial’ genres (online media, video-clips and television), and the ‘arts’ (ballet, modern dance and performance). The way we inhabit and perform our body - in both everyday life and on stage, through stereotypes and archetypes, choice and cliché - are concerns that continue to shape her practice. In her performances, Bachzetsis addresses stereotyped modes of representation of the female body in popular culture, show business and the sex industry, appropriating these tropes in order to build a new self-reflexive, and empowering formal language.
Bachzetsis is a graduate from the Liceo Artistico, Zurich (1995); Accademia Teatro Dimitri in Verscio, Switzerland (1997); the Performance Education Program at STUK - House for Dance, Image & Sound Arts Centre, Leuven, Belgium (1999); and DAS Graduate School at the Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam University of the Arts (2006).
She has been the recipient of various awards, including the Performancepreis Schweiz (Swiss Performance Art Award) (2012), Swiss Art Award (2011), and the Migros-Kulturprozent Jubilee Award (2007). Bachzetsis began working independently in 2001 and has produced over 24 pieces (often working collaboratively), showcasing in venues worldwide.
Bachzetsis lives and works in Switzerland.
notebook: denim, 2023, press image, photo: diana pfammatter
notebook: mermaid porn, 2023, video stills
notebook: sophia the robot sees her feflection for the first time, 2023, video still
2020: obscene, 2022, performance and video installation. onassis stegi, athens, photo: pinelopi gerasimou
2020: obscene, 2022, performance and video installation. onassis stegi, athens, photo: pinelopi gerasimou
2020: obscene, 2022, performance and video installation. onassis stegi, athens, photo: pinelopi gerasimou
chasing a ghost, 2019. photo: mathilde agius
chasing a ghost, 2019. photo: mathilde agius
chasing a ghost, 2019. photo: mathilde agius
escape act, 2018
escape act, 2018
escape act, 2018
an ideal for a living
images of the performance at centre culturel suisse
paris, 2018
an ideal for a living
images of the performance at centre culturel suisse
paris, 2018
an ideal for a living
images of the performance at centre culturel suisse
paris, 2018
private song, 2017
performance at documenta 14, athens
private song, 2017
performance at documenta 14, athens
private song, 2017
performance at documenta 14, athens
massacre: variations on a theme, 2017
images of the performance at moma, new york
massacre: variations on a theme, 2017
images of the performance at moma, new york
massacre: variations on a theme, 2017
images of the performance at moma, new york
private: wear a mask when you talk to me, 2016
private: wear a mask when you talk to me, 2016
private: wear a mask when you talk to me, 2016
from A to B via C, 2014
performance view from mexico city, 2014
from A to B via C, 2014
performance view from mexico city, 2014
from A to B via C, 2014
performance view from mexico city, 2014
gold, 2004
performance at kurimanzutto, mexico city, 2014
gold, 2004
performance at kurimanzutto, mexico city, 2014
gold, 2004
performance at kurimanzutto, mexico city, 2014
the stages of staging, 2013
performance view from basel, switzerland
the stages of staging, 2013
performance view from basel, switzerland
the stages of staging, 2013
performance view from basel, switzerland
etude, 2012
performance view from basel, switzerland
a piece danced alone, 2011
performance view from zurich, switzerland
bluff, 2009
performance view from zurich, switzerland
dancing, 2009
with participation of students of rietveld academy
amsterdam, the netherlands
dream season, 2008
performance view from zurich, switzerland
this side up, 2007
in collaboration with julia born
performance view from london, united kingdom
this side up, 2007
in collaboration with julia born
performance view from london, united kingdom
handwerk, 2005
performance view from amsterdam, the netherlands
show dance, 2004
performance view from brussels, belgium
show dance, 2004
performance view from brussels, belgium
murder mysteries - same difference, 2004
in collaboration with danai anesiadou
brussels, belgium
perfect, 2001
performance view of antwerp, belgium
installation view notebook: mermaid porn, 2023, kunst halle sankt gallen. photo: e. sommer
installation view obscene: 2020, festival move, centre pompidou, 2023. photo: hervé véronese
installation view 2020: obscene, 2022, kunsthaus zurich, zurich, 2022, photo: franca candrian
installation view an ideal for living, centre culturel suisse à paris, 2018
installation view massacre: variations on a theme, the museum of modern art, new york, 2017
installation view from a to b via c, museo jumex, 2014.
Since Bachzetsis started working independently in 2001, she has created over 30 pieces, which have been shown in theaters, festivals, and public space venues around the world. In addition to this, her work has been exhibited in a variety of contemporary art spaces and museums, including Centre Pompidou, Paris (2023), Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland (2022), the Art Institute of Chicago (2019), the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2017), the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2013 and 2015), Tate Modern, London (2014), Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2014), and Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2008), among others.
Her work 2020: Obscene premiered its theatre version in November 2021 at the Gessnerallee in Zurich, while the exhibition version was shown for the first time in a solo exhibition in spring 2022 at the Kunsthaus Zürich. Bachzetsis presented her piece Notebook at the Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen in 2023 as an installation that reviews, challenges, and expands her artistic methodologies of the past two decades—produced in collaboration with various conversation partners. On the occasion of the exhibition, Bachzetsis’s monograph Show/Time/Book Book/Time/Show was published, edited by Hendrik Folkerts and designed by Julia Born. Currently, Bachzetsis has been invited by the Cullberg Ballet in Stockholm to collaborate on a new piece. This act study, Exposure, reveals elements for performance in endurance, transforming static concepts of power into an empowering language of intimacy. The work will be premiered in September 2024 in Sweden.
Bachzetsis has also participated in a number of international biennials and large-scale exhibitions, such as documenta 14, Athens and Kassel, Germany (2017), the Biennial of Moving Images, Geneva, Switzerland (2014), (d)OCUMENTA 13, Kassel, Germany (2012), as well as the 5th Berlin Biennial (2008). Bachzetsis was nominated for the DESTE Prize (2011) and is a laureate of the Migros Kulturprozent Jubilee Award (2007), the Swiss Art Award (2011 and 2016), and the Performancepreis Schweiz (Swiss Performance Prize) (2012).
Read the full article on how performer Alexandra Bachzetsis proposes a new "framing" in order to deconstruct traditional and contemporary cultural codes at the Art Viewer.
This performance investigates fluidity and permanence via the body, identity, the moving image and performance, challenging definitions of physical, emotional and psychological relationships.
In her choreographies, performances, videos and sculptures, Alexandra Bachzetsis examines how contemporary media culture inscribes itself in the body. The core of her exhibition at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) consists of her latest body of works Escape Act (2018). Bachzetsis picks up stereotypical ideals of body and behavior spread by mass media and treats them by means of persiflage.
Pioneer Works presents for the first time in the United States the performance Escape Act by Alexandra Bachzetsis.
Alexandra Bachzetsis creates a poetic device that allows the viewer to "perceive" the technical and socially constructed dimensions of desire. The piece gathers seven living bodies and a multitude of objects that connect and disconnect to form different desiring machines.
In private there are Oriental drag queen dances, gym and western yoga exercises mutating into football and porn poses, stock moves from theatrical training for advertising and the repetition of Michael Jackson’s rituals by teenagers. There is Trisha Brown transitioning into Rembetiko, and a single voice fighting to survive national and gender identity social theaters.
