About David Bergé
The series on this website are designed to be perceived through the internet. Other aspects of my work, that are more site specific, ephemeral or sculpturally oriented, are not represented here.
David Bergé (BE, °1983) is an artist working on the intersection of photography, performance and choreography with an awareness of the urban space. His practice consists of walkpieces and photo installations. His work has been seen at and produced by TanzQuartier Wien (Vienna, AT), WorkSpace Brussels (Brussels, BE), NETWERK Center for Contemporary Art (Aalst, BE), PRISMA (Mexico-City, MX), SALT (Istanbul, TR) and Goethe Institution (New Delhi, IN). Artistic collaborations include projects with (amongst others) choreographer Trajal Harrell (US), curator Elke Krasny (AT), lightening designer Jan Maertens (BE) and choreographer Jana Unmüßig (DE).
PROFESSIONAL TOURISM
I abandoned my studio about 15 months ago and reduced my belongings to a suitcase. Since than, I have been operating as a Professional Tourist, organizing my life around my work and only moving to the next place when there is a concrete project. The project’s 10 stages reflect on the notions of visiting places and the economics in the field of contemporary art production.
VOICES on the work of David Bergé
1. on photo installations PeopleScapes #1 and #2, presented at NETWERK center for contemporary art, BE
exhibition text by Elke Van Campenhout
2. Elke Krasny on Vienna Footnotes, Walkpiece in vienna, 2010: The walking guide presses down the handle of the door to the playground. It cannot be opened yet. It’s too early in the day. The group met in front of Mariahilfer Kirche. It set out quietly at a time when the city was waking from its sleep. Together they circle the play- ground. Exactly when they are crossing the street the park attendant drives up in her car and takes out the key. Did someone order her appearance, or did the choreography of chance take care of this exact timing?
read the full article on CorpusWeb: VIENNA FOOTNOTES
documentation VIENNA FOOTNOTES by Jack Hauser
3. Oliver Mechcatie on David Bergé’s Walk practice, berlin 2006-2008: (...) If the participants are early enough (usually those representing the greatest capacity for aesthetic perception), the streets will explode with silence before them, from seeing social skyscrapers sculpturally crash into the sky under falling silent snow within the utterly black darkness of early morning at 5AM to becoming voyeurs of the concrete local 90 minutes later. (...)
4. Elizabeth Waterhouse on PROFESSIONAL TOURISM stage #4: Reflecting his extensive collaborations with choreographers from the field of contemporary dance, photographer David Bergé’s solo work is marked by an attentiveness to movement—an awareness of how stilled photographic frames trace dynamics and spark the active process of understanding what we see. The series Professional Tourism stage #4 is both a study of urban reality, and an investigation of the compositional relationship between image center and periphery. Like the visitor orienting within unfamiliar territory, these images of landscapes present views that ignite the intensity of active, quizzical looking.
Dynamisms surface in the formal level of spatial composition, in which a tension exists between the simple, empty center and the complex, discordant periphery. Lacking a visual anchor, the photos refute the basic logic of engagement and signification based upon a center—logics of cohesion, balance, and political or aesthetic unity. Instead engagement is multiplied. Destabilized, the viewer may initially search or scan the landscape. In this mode, the picture becomes a static object of active looking, the eyes palpating for some semblance of whole or meaning. Alternatively, or after a period of orientation, the viewer may dissolve into the empty center and engage with the margins through peripheral vision. The later supports a different connection with the work, a meeting or even a portal where the landscape comes to you and representational content surfaces more internally as resonances. Space is activated, both within the frame of the photograph, and within the intermediary space between the viewer and what is seen.
5. from a conversation with Jack Hauser for Movement Research Performance Journal #40, New York (...) I am not sure if I can relate to this idea of a master of ceremony. A master of ceremony has a lot to do with entertainment and making sure no one will complain afterwards. Mastering a situation doesn’t mean to entertain, nor to bring every situation to a straight and understandable point. I actually like it when it gets boring. For me mastering has a lot to do with making sure the situation goes on. To take care what I carry with me will be brought at some point, usually without forcing, and that has a lot to do with choreography, with the composition of the evening. To use what the space offers and what you prepared in an in- stant composition. There has never been any video documentation of the events here. It’s a doing together in a composed way. There is no exterior. Just like your performance walks. (...)
my projections as setdesign in EXTRACTION, choreography Marc Vanrunxt, 5 minute clip, 2009
NOTED APPEARANCE 5 minute clip of performance installation, 2009