About

'Trace' draws out relationships between performance and its documents and residue, bringing together new commissions with historical and contemporary works from across the Gallery's Collection. It includes works by John Baldessari, Brown Council, Rebecca Horn, Bruce Nauman, Mike Parr, Campbell Patterson, Qin Ga, Carolee Schneemann, Sriwhana Spong, Song Dong, Ai Weiwei, Gosia Wlodarczak, Erwin Wurm, Zhang Huan, and more.

Spanning an array of cultural contexts and varying sorts of performativity – feats of endurance, repetitive actions, shamanistic rituals, vaudevillian acts – the works also range wildly in tone: from sublime to icky to out and out funny. 'Trace' gives presence to the residues that stop performance disappearing altogether and testifies to the relevance of ephemeral work in the Gallery: it appears, disappears, then reappears in various guises.