BERGAMOT GROUP
ABOUT
WORKS
PERFORMANCE / ACTION
DELEGATED PERFORMANCE
VIDEO
PHOTO
OBJECT
CYCLES
ORGANIC LIFE
ORGANIC WORK
BIOPHILIA
FLIGHT
TEXTS
EXHIBITIONS
CONTACT
NEWS
ABOUT
Bergamot Group is an artistic duo founded
by Volha Maslouskaya and Raman Tratsiuk
in 1998 in Brest (Belarus)
The Bergamot Group, focuses mainly on performance, delegated performance
or interactive actions, but also realises videos, objects, installations and photographic series.
They were also the curators of many international art projects. Initially the artists explored issues of interpersonal communication, gender and violence, but later their actions began to blur the boundaries between art and life, spectator and performer, introducing the ‘replacement’ of group members with others. Questions of authorship and the relationship between artist and audience became a key theme. In 2010, the group launched the performance script competition ‘Organic Work’, abandoning the traditional notion of authorship. Their work addresses issues of social identity and shifting consciousness. The group's experiments redefine the roles of performer, artist and spectator, revealing the mechanisms of power and interaction in art. Bergamot connects art with life, betting on an open, public exchange of roles and ideas.
Works were presented among others in Venice Art Biennale, Manifesta 9, MUMOK Museum of Modern Art, Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, St-Etienne Metropole Musee d’Art Moderne, National Museum in Poznan, National Museum in Warsaw.
The performance series can be divided into 3 branches:
1. Organic Life Cycle.
These are performances conceived and realized by the artists themselves. At first, the participants were interested in the themes of human communication, gender and violence. ...Unlike the apologists of mechanical subordination, who mask their desire for power with the illusion of harmony to ensure the effectiveness of their actions, the artists of the Bergamot group rely on open, publicly displayed conflict, thus exposing the mechanisms of power that are usually hidden...1
2. Delegated performances.
Performances from the Organic Life Cycle conceived by artists, but performed for various reasons by other people (or partly by other people). Over time, the group moved from problems of interpersonal communication to the narrower issue of analyzing the fluidity of the statuses of „performer/artist/author” and „spectator”: all roles are questioned within the experiments. ...Subsequently, during performances, the „replacement” of group members with other people began to occur, and the boundary between performer and spectator, art and life began to blur and almost disappear. From this point on, questions of authorship, of the relationship between artist and spectator, performer, sometimes anonymous, and author, creator and work came to the fore in Bergamot’s work...2
3. Organic Work Cycle.
These are performances conceived by other, often random people, and performed by the Bergamot group.
...Maslouskaya and Tratsiuk announced an open competition for performance ideas or scenarios in 2010 and have been implementing the winning projects ever since. They get scenarios from participants in various ways. Now the group has radically transformed its artistic idea, creating performances based on other people’s scripts, in effect abandoning authorship.... Volhi Maslouska and Raman Tratsiuk’s organic work addresses the issue of social identity, self-definition and changing consciousness. The group outlined the boundaries of the game, within which there is an intermingling of roles and levels of interaction between its participants...3
1. Rainer Fuchs. PUBLIC RITUALS. Art/ Videos from Poland 2003
2,3. Ewa Hornowska. Gra z personą: Granica. 2010