Peter Baren Performs at Rapid Pulse Festival Chicago

Introducing an original score to Defibrillator Gallery on June 4, Dutch performance artist Peter Baren will participate in the Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival in Chicago, IL. 

From June 1st until June 5th, Rapid Pulse features international, national, and local performance artists who will present live works in the Noble Square neighborhood. Yearly, Chicago audiences embrace this unique opportunity to witness performance art from around the world.

Peter Baren is a highly regarded figure in European Performance Art, and has created a specific score for the festival. He will be working with local performers to embody the actions. This is fitting to his oeuvre, as Baren’s work is often collaborative; other artists he has worked with in the past include dancer and choreographer Truus Bronkhorst, poet Koos Dalstra and artist Marion Gadiot.

Baren’s multimedia practice often entail site-specific public performances which he refers to as ‘Exploitation Performances’. He uses video, both for documenting these performances, and to create works which are more medium-specific examinations revolving around the history of mankind, cultural objects and space. Many of Baren’s pieces revolve around the notion of ritual and the way it functions in various socio-cultural contexts. This is conveyed in his art through the use of concepts of otherness and ancient cultures in works that also employ ‘body art’ techniques slightly reminiscent of Burden, Acconci, and D’Armagnac, but in anti-minimalist settings constructed with theatrical props.

Click here to flip through a digital brochure of the festival. 

About Peter Baren 

Peter Baren was born in 1954 in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and currently lives in Amsterdam. He studied at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam from 1972 to 1977 and since his first public performance in 1980 his work has been shown frequently in the Netherlands as such and towards an international level during the late eighties. In 1989 he was one of the recipients of the PRIX DE ROME Art&Theatre. 

About Rapid Pulse Internaitional Performance Art Festival

Celebrating theirr fifth year, Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival is an annual exhibition of performance art in and around Defribrillator Gallery ​at 1463 W Chicago Avenue from June 1 until June 5, 2016​. Rapid Pulse presents a dynamic range of styles and forms of performance art. The festival embraces the local and the global simultaneously, aiming to invigorate Chicago by bringing to the city artists of exceptional calibre from around the world with dynamic programming, decidedly fearless and unique. In addition to live performances, each day features a Video Performance Series and a Gastronomy Series, STǓ. 

About the Netherland-America Foundation

Building on the enduring heritage and values shared between the peoples of the Netherlands and the United States, the Netherland-America Foundation (NAF) seeks to further strengthen the bonds between our two countries through exchange in the arts, sciences, education, business and public affairs.