FUGE: Guided tour

On September 4, the Maxim Gorky Theater opens the first season of its new artistic program with FUGE, a performative installation by the important conceptual artist Sarkis. Visual art, performance, sound, memory and collective presence come together on stage, in the auditorium, in the foyers and passageways. Theatre becomes a permeable form and a space of invitation.

Sarkis was born in 1938 in Istanbul to an Armenian family and has lived in Paris since 1964. His work has been shown at documenta and internationally. In 1978, during his stay as a DAAD guest in Berlin, he began War Treasure, an ongoing work in which objects, images and memories travel through various stories. He is now entering a theatre in this form for the first time. Sarkis describes his work as Mise en Scène: acts of invitation that establish new relationships between artists, works, memories and stories. Here, theatre becomes a space of hospitality in which different times and voices coexist.

At the center is a mirrored skull modeled on “Little Foot,” one of the oldest almost completely preserved hominin skeletons, which is reminiscent of Sarkis' own face. Rainbow-colored rain falls in seven colors on seven pieces. Seven continents are created from these parts, which revolve on the Gorky stage and set the world in motion. The work, designed by Sarkis and produced in Gorky's workshops, asks where we come from and where we're heading.

Sarkis invites Polish theatre revolutionary Tadeusz Kantor (1915—1990) to this constellation. A platform is reminiscent of the traveling stage of his ensemble — an inseparable companion and mobile territory of the theatre. 31 crosses and rainbow light enter Sarkis' world, while another room traces Kantor's journey from The Return of Odysseus (1944) to his happenings that carried the theatre out into the world. This continues Gorky's collaboration with Cracoteka, the center for documenting Tadeusz Kantor's art.

John Cage appears from Kantor's wandering stage. In Litany for the Whale (1980), underwater sounds of two whales become music. The musician Frank Steijns plays the work on a glockenspiel with 43 bells, the sound of which moves through the entire theatre. Kantor's 31 crosses listen with us. Chandeliers made of bird feathers breathe with the air and generate time through their movement.

In FUGE, the intergenerational Golden Gorkis ensemble activates this constellation with bodies, voices, movement and breath. Like in a fugue, stories and voices appear, disappear, return and transform each other. FUGE opens the new Gorky as a house of invitation — a place where art, architecture and rhythm move just as much as the way we come together.

In the gallery, the former cloakroom foyer, Sarkis' L'atelier d'aquarelle dans l'eau (2005—2026) invites you to discover the speed of colors as water, light and time flow together.

FUGE can be seen daily from September 4 to October 11 from 1 pm to 9 pm. Admission is free.