London Gallery Weekend announces performance commissions

London Gallery Weekend has announced the artists who will take part in this year’s programme of performance art.

The new commissions will be shown for free in three locations around the city: Friday 2 June in Piccadilly, central London, Saturday 3 June in Peckham, south London, and Sunday 4 June in Hoxton, east London. They have been organised with UP Projects, an organisation which curates and commissions public art.

Swiss artist Nicole Bachmann will present not a centre, but a mesh, a spoken word performance written, produced and performed by the artist. London-based Chinese artist Li Hei Di will present The Willow Tree in which the artist and three other performers will wear custom-made funnels as hats, through which liquid will squirt on to paper, creating a “self-determining composition”. London-based French Vietnamese artist Minh-Lan Tran will present Heat Generation (prayer) in collaboration with choreographer Lena Hetzel, which “considers the infliction and interiorisation of violence”.

The artists were chosen from a list of nominations from the participating galleries. The selection panel included Bengi Ünsal, the director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), who explained, “we were reflecting on what a public audience–including those that may not normally watch performance art–would appreciate and wish to see.”

There will also be a performance in Peckham Square in south London, created by local young people working with artist Lesley Asare, as well as a programme of public talks with the artists.

London Gallery Weekend (2-4 June) celebrates the city’s numerous and varied galleries and their artists. This is the second time the event has included a performance programme, after Mandy El-Sayegh was commissioned to make work last year.