Performance

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Everything is movement

»Lambdoma«
Creatief Centrum Maastricht 1988
With Peter Freysen - actor and singer, and Birgit Ruttkowski (D) – movement-artist.
Lambdoma is the name of a Greek matrix. Pythagoras developed it in 20 years.
It is, in the most simple sense, a chart of multiplication and division in which you can find specific musical harmonic intervals. We used this thema to let our interaction grow as a spontaneous process. Voice, movement and the growing painting, made together in playful improvisation.

VIDEOS 1985-2000

Performances in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Arnhem, Wageningen, Groningen, Rotterdam, Maastricht, Brussel, Berlin, Erfurt and Berkeley

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Works

1987 - 1991

Performance »IK HEB DE AARDE GELEERD...«
Expositiezaal W.G., Amsterdam 1992
foto Adriana Sjan Bijman ✝, 2017, Findhorn

Performance »ICH, DIE REISE MEINER SCHWESTER«
Künstlerhaus Bethanien,
Berlin 1988
foto Catherina Bach

Performance »WANDERER…«
in Pelze Multi-Media Berlin 1987
foto Roswitha Baumeister

»To whom it may concern«

It gives me great pleasure to write about the creative process and art works of Ans Swart.
Examining her historical development, I discovered an artist unlimited by bounderies and contineously evolving.
The ways of her multidisciplinarity, that have been expressed in visual images, kinetic movement, audio sounding and poetic visualizing, have accumulatively brought Swart to a dynamic and vivid point of artistic development.
The vitality of the recent visual art works, although static in the frame, has been created with an intimate knowledge of the power of energy - the reality of human energy within the abstract and/or spiritual form. Although possessing an artistic maturity Swart is continuing her search for personal freedom of expression. Under these circumstances, we the „audience" can be assured of many, still known, enriching experiences.

Prof. Elisabeth Langley, Montreal Canada, 10. June 1996

Ans Swart (Statements Catalog 1987-1994)

Performance
»IK HEB DE AARDE GELEERD...«

Aarde, laat het moment mij vertellen wat er moet gebeuren:
Ik loop over het houtskool en druk het aan; ik lig op het doek, kies rood krijt en trek m’n lichaam na. Ik zet het doek recht overeind. Ik kies voor lascauxblauw, water en bindmiddel. Trek blindelings, m’n nu staande lichaam na tot de reikwijdte van m’n armen. Kalm en vanuit een innerlijke zekerheid maak ik elke stap; in het blauw zet ik nog eens mijn handen, de verf droogt langzaam. Ik ben in kontak met het beeld, ik wil er lijfelijk mee in kontakt zijn, zo nauw, zo dichtbij en dat bevalt me. Het lichaamsvolume blijft wit, open ruimte. Nog eens omtrek ik mijn beeltenis met de kleur blauw. Geen kritisch oog dat mij belet deze lijnen te zetten. Nog eens de kleur rood; de aarde kleurt donkerder. Ik vul de lichaamsruimte in met kleuren zoals ze voor mij voelen. Aanvang of einde van een schilderij? Het is een vreemd gekozen beeld geworden, in die zin dat het mij verwondert; schilderij en performance tegelijk.

Earth, let the moment tell me what to do:
I walk over the charcoal and press it; I lie on the canvas, choose red chalk and trace my body. I straighten the canvas. I choose lascaux blue, water and binder. Blindly, I trace my now standing body to the reach of my arms. Calmly and from an inner certainty I make each step; in the blue I put my hands once more, the paint drying slowly. I am in contact with the sculpture, I want to be in bodily contact with it, so close, so close, and I like that. The body volume remains white, open space. Once more I outline my image with the colour blue. No critical eye prevents me from setting these lines. Once more the colour red; the earth turns darker. I fill in the body space with colours as they feel to me. Beginning or end of a painting? It has become a strangely chosen image, in the sense that it amazes me; painting and performance at the same time.

Performance
»ICH, DIE REISE MEINER SCHWESTER«

Een schilderij op de muur van de binnenplaats, prijkt van mijn hand, tussen die der Georgiërs en in de DDR geborenen.
(A painting on the wall of the courtyard, by me, stands out among those of Georgians and GDR-born people.)

Performance
»WANDERER«

Wanderer, es gibt keinen Weg, der Weg ensteht beim Gehen, der Weg das sind deine Fußstapfen und sonst nichts…
(Wanderer, there is no path, the path is made by walking, the path is your footsteps and nothing else...)

Performance
»WANDERER«

Painted to dead/pointing someone, Utrecht 1989
Three life phases, West Berlin 1989 with Berlin musician.
Grenzfälle/borderline cases, East Berlin 1990 with Ralf Hoyer/Susanne Stelzenbach Performance-Event, Amsterdam 1994
Mexican Totem, Werenzhein 1997
Lambdoma Maastricht, 1988

Ans Swart:
»The soul is the empty paper,
inspired by the connection with
the universe. The purity of an impulse,
to be open to receive, only following.«

Out of the Catalog:
from moment to moment to moment, 1995
Design and published by Roger Broechler, Duesseldorf

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Aarde en vlieggevoelens
Mixed Media, 150 x 200 cm, 1992

Hart horizon
MIxed Media, 150 x 200 cm, 1992

I have the elements of a vase in me,
which answers the question: can I be a vase?
There is no difference between me
and that which is outside me;
only our common habits of thinking
divide them.
In essence they are one and the same,
whatever I paint.
A painting is a wrestling through matter.

Out of the catalog:
from moment to moment to moment, 1995
Design and published by Roger Broechler, Duesseldorf

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DANCE

Kazuo Ohno:
Dance is the most pure and abstract form
in which the universe can reveal itself.
For an undisturbed expression,
the body has to be totally empty,
so that the soul can play with it like a marionette.
Like the foetus in the womb.

DANCE
Oil on Canvas, 120 x 200 cm

Atelier-Works

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