• Performance

Mehtap Baydu - Mit Müttern und Töchtern

State and Nature performance program

Dates

  • Sa 13.11., 17:30

Artists

  • Mehtap Baydu

Language

  • English
  • German

Register

For Registration please contact info@kunsthalle-baden-baden.de. Participation needs to be confirmed by the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden.

To the exhibition

Many of Mehtap Baydu's works are created with a network of women. Thus, as the title With Mothers and Daughters (2019-2021) suggests, her appearance at the Kunsthalle also becomes a performative act of coming together and sharing with women.

In Turkish tradition, certain dishes are named in reference to the beauty and eroticism of female body parts. For example, there is a meat dish called "Analı Kızlı" [mother and daughter], a soup called "Dul avrat Çorbası" [widow’s soup], and a dessert called "Dilber Dudağı" [sweetheart’s lips]. During the performance, the artist will prepare nine dishes with nine women and later consume them with 39 invited guests. Only dishes are served that bear the designation of parts of the female body or are related to the feminine. During the several days of collective cooking, the focus will be on exchange and reflection on traditions and social conventions. Discussion of gender roles and the questioning of social norms will also characterize the dinner with the guests.

The inaugural major exhibition under the new direction at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, State and Nature, will be prolonged until November 21, 2021 and continues with a leading performance program. Composed of new commissions by Alexandra Pirici, Regina José Galindo, Mehtap Baydu and projects specifically conceived for Baden-Baden, the program brings together what defines contemporary understanding of performance with specific notions, aspects, and dynamics of the performance field.

From politics to choreography or social engagement to sound elements and filmic space, it engages publics in many layers and methods of remembering, forgetting, relocating and resetting through performative tools of artistic research.

Çağla İlk and Misal Adnan Yıldız manifest their approach in their statement: 

“We are feminist, queer, migrant, trans-political subjects. This program might be the source of disorientation, which Baden-Baden needs, or the point of distraction that this city demands. We see how Baden-Baden could become a conceptual stage for experimenting with everyday life. Even just sitting at the Lichtentaler Allee for an hour one might observe so many miracles of nature and orders of state happening around the Kunsthalle as part of everyday reality. This location is our muse, and the politics it brings, our homework...’’