The yellow freesias I bought the day I got back from Switzerland to bring spring into my apartment have not yet died, but I’m leaving again today. For Istanbul. The 12th Biennial opens on the 17th, under the curatorship of Jens Hoffmann and Adriano Perdrosa, and is titled ‘Untitled’. It’s a homage to the late great Felix Gonzales Torres, and I am on a section called ‘Passport’.
One highlight since my return was a performance in a small, sharply raked theatre once used for anatomy demonstrations. Titled After Cardenio, this new play by Jane Taylor had the author reseaching early English literature on the web, and mixing ‘Shakespeare’s world of heightened psychological realism … with the wild novelistic romance and idealism of Cervantes.’
A detail of the backdrop
As the audience files in, artist Penny Siopis is on a ladder, sketching in chalk on the blackboard backdrop, a backdrop added to each night, but designed to be washed clean at the end of the play’s run.
Based on the story of a 17th century woman hanged for the murder of her infant, the cast of five plus one Gavin Younge designed puppet, the silent effigy of the woman, give a vigorous and often humorous performance of the play, which succeeds in raising a series of ethical and moral questions which linger in the mind long after the play is ended.
Actress Jemma Kahn and her alter ego puppet
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