Total Theatre ESP

The stage is bare. A landscape cut from the pines of a mind. Lights, timeless and exuding life. Backstage latent. Ready. Total Theatre ESP is Belmacz’s embodiment of Edward Gordon Craig (b.1872, Stevenage UK — d.1966, Vence, France); a ‘Craigische vorstellung’, an act of Craigian imagination.

An actor, illustrator, director, a scenic designer, thinker and revolutionary philosopher in the Art of Theatre, Craig don’ many hats but this gaze was always attuned to the production dramatic stage. He was a doer. Restless in his search for Higher Forms of Beauty, Craig rejected the particularities of the early 20th-century and its fancy for Realist Theatre — a tendency to impose the physical fashions of the day on a production rather than letting the formalities of the performative work abound an audience’s eye, be these action, scene or voice — embracing instead simple, severe expressions or the base characteristics of theatrical design, the figure in a space. This theatre is poetry in motion.

Direct and uncompromising, Craig, like many modernist artists, was a man with a strong perspective, “The duty of the Theatre (both as Art and as an Institution) is to awaken more calmness and more wisdom in mankind by the inspiration exhaling from its beauty” (Edward Gordon Craig, Towards a New Theatre). This vision has gone on to resonate across ages, across disciplines. Indeed, today Craig’s refusal to make plays with naive pizzazz speaks directly to the current state of the world, one fettered to elaborate staging of a sociocultural life.

Total Theatre ESP leans into Craig’s search for poetic sublimity. Rather than a narrative theme, or some kind of frenzied soap opera, the exhibition unfolds through a modernist meeting of artistic practices. Featuring sculpture and photography, works on and from paper, each artist embraces the formalities of their chosen material, allowing Higher Ideals to direct and guide.

Dramaturgically, Total Theatre ESP evolves from a diagonal stage — a three-dimensional place for extrasensory perception. Sculpture creates this in-ordinary environment, with flying candle lights (Michael Kleine) and a porous screen (Camilla Løw) situating us within a place all strangely in mood. As the exhibition arcs, moments and memories, reconstituted through oblique views — be these photographic (Tereza Zelenková), penned, painted or projected (Agata Madejska, Cosima zu Knyphausen and Rechonski respectively) — appear as non-diegetic soliloquies. Representational and not, these two-dimensional images toy with us, demanding a cognitive engagement with the formalities of their enunciative actions, reminding us that there is always more behind a show and script. Operating between realms, the mind’s visions of a mysterious past and the physicality of the present, ghostly form (Bora Baboçi and Toby Christian) accentuate this speaking through material cues. Meta-reliefs, these traces of narrative awaken us to the performative possibility found in the Craigian and the particular.

Bora Baboçi

(b. 1988, Tirana, Albania)

On the occasion of Total Theatre ESP, Bora builds upon her continuing interest in generations, and the spaces between. Working with a ‘strappo’ technique- a delicate method often used in fresco restoration, wherein a thin layer of fabric is used to detach a painted surface from a wall or support- Banquo in the Fiest, 2024, alludes to the final chapters in Gordon Craig’s On the Art of the Theatre, in particular his musings on ghosts in the tragedies of Shakespeare. Macbeth may murder Banquo, but his ghostly state and the prophesied sovereignty of his successors will not cease to haunt him. Fusing these themes in her ghostly wall peel, Bora’s artwork points to a history of hope found in martyrdom- how one generation risks and loses it all in the hope of a better future for their family. Banquo in the Fiest problematises this history and belief, rendering it as a fragile trace.

Toby Christian

(b. 1983, Boston, Lincolnshire, UK)

Spoke Pillars Clung, 2024, speaks directly to Toby’s long-term practice of papier-mâché sculpture. The work is a wall relief, cream-white, with Carrara marble fragments that jest allusively. Formally, one can read the surface of Spoke Pillars Clung as a contemporary reconstruction of Modernist carving, made from the quotidian stuff of paper. However, Toby’s work questions the material hierarchies associated with the canonical tradition. The paper mushed to create Spoke Pillars Clung comes from the pages of Toby’s notebooks and studio folders. As an artist whose practice involves the physical act of writing and publishing texts—who approaches the routine act of writing in something of a sculptural way—the utilisation of the papier-mâché process here points to how cultural ideas, once alive and chilling, sediment over time, create material composites that can be crafted into something new.

Michael Kleine

(b. 1981 Lahr, Germany)

Often working in a spatial manner, through architectural intervention, Michael’s artworks make spaces perform, bringing them to life. Leuchter, 2017, reflects Michael’s architectural, gestural and indeed his performative practice. Here candle-light is used to blur the boundaries between something solid and something fleeting, questioning how one interacts with a physical place. As the flames flicker, they dance, casting temporal shadows, becoming something of a choreographic mirror.

Cosima zu Knyphausen

(b. 1988, Houson, USA)

‘Over the years, [Cosima] has explored art historical motifs through quoting, paraphrasing, and appropriation to envision an alternative canon shaped by lesbian desire.’

– Philippa zu Knyphausen

These two works deeply align with Cosima’s interest in envisioning new histories through the art of riff on. Now joyous then dolorous, 2021, has an ironic sense of monkishness about it—the scene’s monotone austerity ribs up against the quizzically in the protagonist’s actions. Something I wrote (Fenchel), 2023, echoes this sense of whimsy. Depicting an open book, a brush or pen, and a leafless fennel bulb, this painting not only visually chimes with the style of Now joyous then dolorous but could be seen as something of a prelude or prequel —the book’s open pages could tell of a monk and a lion.

Camilla Løw

(b.1976, Oslo, Norway)

Recently Camilla Løw has been exploring modular forms and modes of assemblage. In Total Theatre ESP she has pushed this investigation to its edge, creating a Shoji screen of sorts.

Camilla often leans into a visual language recalling Constructivism or Minimalism. Rather than creating something macho or stoic however, her forms invite play and performativity. By recasting a room dividing screen as something more mobile and animate, Camilla’s sculptural work can be seen to question the way space, particularly city space, is coldly subdivided.

The City of Systems, 2024, reimagines the confines of urban living as something waning in moonlight.

Agata Madejska

(b.1979, Warsaw, Poland)

Ephemeral notations or allegorical ciphers, Agata’s light-sensitive drawings are poetic wanderings created whilst listening to speeches made by prominent politicians from 2018 to date. As workings done prior to and alongside her installation and sound-based work Mistakes Were Made (2018-date), these painterly drawings not only physically recall cloud-like forms but allude to the wider political atmospherics we live within.

Rechonski 

(b. 1999, London, UK)

‘I was once taken on a guided tour of the National Theatre with a group, and whilst we were being shown the Olivier stage, Simon Russel Beale appeared from one of the doors. He asked how we were and then asked someone in the group what their favourite Shakespeare play was. They said ‘Macbeth’, at which point he abruptly took them out of the theatre, told him to spin around three times, spit over his shoulder, curse, and then knock on the door to get back onto the stage — which he did.’

Rechonski’s A Staged Photograph, 2024, is a repurposed stage light fitted with a black and white Gobo — a lens with an image printed upon it. When lit, the light casts a quick-look glimpse or oblique view of the National Theatre’s Olivier stage. Building upon Rechonski’s interest in the meeting of visual and theatrical arts, this artwork questions the myths that govern presence and performativity.

Tereza Zelenková

 (b. 1985, Ostrava, Czechia)

Visually echoing the cultural mapping undertaken by writers such as Walter Benjamin, Tereza’s enquiry into light and shadow records the shifting nature of the time—the effect of modernisation on socio-cultural ways of life and living. Affected by the photographic enquiries of the nineteenth century while working in black and white analogue photography, Tereza’s photos draw us into a sinister world, barren or dead, or somewhere between the two. The artworks eeps atmospheric theatricality. Aligning with the philosophies of the exhibition’s protagonist, this affective power in Tereza’s artworks arrives through the simple use of material formalities.

artist biographies

Bora Baboçi (b. 1988, Tirana, Albania) studied architectural design and theory at the University of Toronto, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, and has a masters degree from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Select exhibitions include, Manifesta14, Prishtina (2022); Autostrada Biennale, Kosovo (2021); Mediterranea 19 Biennal, San Marino, Italy (2021); NEXT Balkan A for Unapologetic, Sofia, Bulgaria (2021); National Gallery of Albania Ambitions, Tirana, Albanian (2021); EVA International Biennal 39th, Limerick, Ireland (2020).

Toby Christian (b. 1983, Boston, Lincolnshire, UK) studied at Wimbledon College of Art, London before completing his postgraduate training at the Royal Academy Schools in 2012, where he was awarded the Gold Medal. Select exhibitions include, String Figures / Fadenspiele, Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland (2024); Lorem Ipsum | Objetos Nunca Morrem, CAMA São Paulo & Verniz, São Paulo, Brazil (2024); Flash_Looking, Belmacz, London, UK (2024); After Mallarmé, Large Glass, London, UK (2024); no odonata, Belmacz, London, UK (2023); Interpolations II, Galerija Prozori, Zagreb, Croatia (2022); Lazy Bones, Casanova, São Paulo, Brazil (2021).

Michael Kleine (b. 1981 Lahr, Germany) completed his MA in music theatre direction at the Theaterakademie in Hamburg. His work has been on view at institutions of the visual and performing arts, including, Bonner Kunstverein; Schinkelpavillon, Berlin; Volksbühne, Berlin; Kunstverein Leipzig; Donaueschinger Musiktage; Ruhrtriennale, Bochum; Theater Basel; Kampnagel, Hamburg; Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe; Hamburgische Staatsoper; Museion, Bolzano; Sammlung Klosterfelde, Hamburg; Biennale Arte di Venezia; Philharmonie de Paris; Opéra de Reims; FRAC Lorraine, Metz.

Cosima zu Knyphausen (b. 1988, Houson Texas, USA) studied at Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, Leipzig, Germany. Select exhibitions include, The Temptation to Exist, Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin, Germany (2023); Landschaft, Galerie Khoshbakht, Cologne, Germany (2023); The End surprised me, Weiss Falk, Basel, Switzerland (2022); Everything I do could be done differently, piloto pardo at Cecilia Brunson Projects, London, England (2022); Ausstellung Eins, Galerie Klein, Hamburg, Germany (2022); Bajo el sol, Travesía Cuatro, Madrid, Spain (2022); Pinturas de género, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago, Chile (2022); Closet Drama, piloto pardo, London, England (2021); Ei Mosaik, Weiss Falk, Basel, Switzerland (2021).

Camilla Løw (b.1976, Oslo, Norway) graduated with a BA in Fine Art from the Glasgow School of Art. Select exhibitions include, Virksomheten [The business], Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo (2023);  Flower in the Wind, Belmacz, London (2023); Carla Åhlander & Camilla Løw, Belmacz, London (2022);  GIRL MEETS GIRL, Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Norway (2022); Space Junk, ISCA Gallery, Oslo (2021);  High Rise, ISCA Gallery, Oslo (2020); Alfabet, Belmacz, London (2019); INSTRUMENTAL (Camilla Løw & Gert Marcus), Fullersta Gård, Huddinge (2018); Collective Collaborations, British Council Collection (touring exhibition) (2018-19).

Agata Madejska (b.1979, Warsaw, Poland) graduated from Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen in 2007 and the Royal College of Art, London in 2010. Selected exhibitions include, Grand Habitat Horror Vacui, Flat Time House, London (2024); No Meat Without Bones, Belmacz, London (2022); Mother Mercury, Art Night, London (2019); Modified Limited Hangout, Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven (2018); Technocomplex, Parrotta Contemporary Art, Stuttgart (2017); Place. Tlomackie 3/5, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw (2017); Johanna Jaeger & Agata Madejska, Kunstraum griffelkunst, Hamburg (2016).

Rechonski (b. 1999, London), studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London, UK. Select exhibitions include, true-believer syndrome, Gestures, London, UK (2024); temporal spelunking, Belmacz, London, UK (2024); Field Works, Hoxton Hall (UCL East), London, UK (2024); Unsafe at any Speed, Morton St. Partners, New York, USA (2022); To Live & Think Like Pigs, SHIFT Cardiff, UK (2022); mind forg’d manacles, FILET, London, UK (2021); unsellable, JUST/a studio, London, UK (2021); 251st Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (2019).

Tereza Zelenková (b. 1985 in Ostrava, Czechia) received her MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art in London in 2012. Select exhibitions include, Memory and desire, stirring, Fotograf Gallery, Prague, Czechia (2023); The Maladies of The Infinite, Cultural Center of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia (2022); The Double Room, The Campbell House Museum with Contact Photo Festival, Toronto, Canada (2021); Known and Strange, V&A Museum, London, UK (2021-23); SPBH, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France (2021); a Handful of Dust, National Centre for Photography and Images, Taipei, Taiwan (2021); Le Cabaret du Néant, Frac île-de-france, Le Château, Paris, France (2020); A Snake that disappeared through a hole in the wall, Foam Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2018).