The olympic sprint with the giggle laughter #1 & #2

Xenia Perek The olympic sprint with the giggle laughter #2 15 January | 12 March, 2022 For her second exhibition at ADA, Xenia Perek conceived a live performance alongside an exhibition of photographs, in order to distinguish her multidisciplinary and global sprit signature, under the title The olympic sprint with the giggle laughter #1 and #2. #2 is an exhibition of photographs showing Perek’s far reaching exploration in visual art. Perek’s work is founded as a live event, however it can be well understood in the in the form of photography, expressing a critical account that otherwise does not fully resonate in the case of a club or theatre. In this context, the artist can highlight the visual aspect of her “body” image building showing how she understands and views what she is doing. Photography captures the energy of her work allowing for time to be still with the eye and the memory of the viewer, participating with the image in a retrospective aspect. Her presence is the predominant element in a still photo, holding a moment in time of what was a moving image. In a sense a photograph of live art can be seen as reductive. But in Perek’s work it is an extension of what she has created, and gives us permission to experience her live body again and again. Her message is multiplied when she devotes her artistic ingenuity in the stillness of a photographic image. The #1 is the live performance which took place in December 2021, as the first chapter of The olympic sprint with the giggle laughter. This work has been born out of the character of the golden creature who comes out from a cosmic egg. The narration comes from the succession of image after image, element after element with text and lip sync alongside a physical score. “People say just be yourself. Like it would be easy. It’s not.” Xenia Perek (PL, 1993) is a performance artist. She graduated with a Fine Arts degree at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie of Amsterdam, in 2018. Originally from Poland, she is now based in Amsterdam where she has founded her work creating performance art pieces. Her pieces are devised from physical and mental scores located in galleries, theatres and night life venues. She uses live body with sensorial imagery for her medium, using her personal experiences of gender identity as content to create a theatrical narration. Her shows are live body-built momentums which can be seen separately or framed in photography. She surrounds herself by explicit stories, dreams, life situations and physical states termed as dynamic, instinctual material. Perek creates characters with various un/effectiveness and energy. She contextualises this in a socio-economical world as a quest for negotiations on how we live. Perek is a part of one of the oldest Amsterdam drag queen houses, the House of Hopelezz.