The World as a Stage

"The World as a Stage" presents a key group of international, contemporary artists who reinvigorate the rich historical relationship between visual art and theatre. Challenging negative associations made between the notion of 'theatricality' and the realm of visual art in recent decades, the artists in this exhibition make visible the extent to which a sense of theatre, or spectacle, now permeates the spectator's role in the gallery and how this carries through to their experience of the contemporary urban environment. Considering a variety of mediums including installation, sculpture, performance, participatory works and events, this publication considers issues including the framing of human presence in the experience of art. "The World as a Stage" will examine recent attempts to eliminate the art object entirely by turning the institutional space into a changeable and constantly performed or staged arena in which the audience is central as player or performer. "The World as a Stage" will include new and existing work by fourteen artists: Pawel Althamer, Cezary Bodzianowski, Ulla von Brandenburg, Jeremy Deller, Geoffrey Farmer, Andrea Fraser, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Jeppe Hein, Renata Lucas, Rita McBride, Markus Schinwald, Tino Sehgal, Catherine Sullivan and Mario Ybarra.