Simone Forti

Los Angeles-based Simone Forti (b. 1935, Florence) has been one of the most avant-garde international performance, dance and video artists since the 1960s. Forti defines herself as a ‘movement artist’. At the core of her work lies her interest in what our bodies can know about things. In her works, which remain progressive today, and which consist of films, videos, photographs, installations, drawings and texts, she continually returns to the question of one’s own movement in space. Within this corporal work she deals with questions regarding how we deal with media and politics, as well as questions of behaviour we cultivate in direct interaction with one another. Though Simone Forti can no longer carry out the performances that are so important to her work, performers like Claire Filmon and Sarah Swenson, who studied with Forti for a long time, rehearse and realise the performances with local artists and dancers. For Forti this is a means of transmitting her work and experiences to a younger generation, thus carrying it into the future. This presentation at the Kunsthaus Baselland is Simone Forti’s first solo exhibition in Switzerland.