Category Archives: Processions or Marches or Parades

Teresa Murak, Procession (1974)

Teresa Murak, Procession (1974)

“In the very early spring of 1974, the artist put on herself a cress seeds coat grown earlier (the working method being a reference to the tradition of handiwork and “female labor”), and set out on a Procession through the streets of Warsaw, thus introducing the figure of Mother Nature into a realm specifically belonging to culture. This gesture, primarily referring to the relationship between the feminine and the natural being—also a main focus essential to feminism, albeit differently—present in corporal feminism, was at the same time a political one, an intervention in urban space which manifested a sensitivity extremely different to that officially valid in the People’s Republic of Poland.

The cress seed, a small fast-growing plant with a distinctive smell, became Teresa Murak’s trademark. Co-existing with the artist, in most cases the plant becomes the subject of her examination and the object of care while her art practice connected with the seeds is based on the idea of co-existence.

The action was documented on photos as well as oral history.” [credit]

Daniel J. Martinez, VinZula Kara and West Side Three-Point Marchers, “Consequences of a Gesture” (1993)

Daniel J. Martinez, VinZula Kara and West Side Three-Point Marchers, “Consequences of a Gesture” (1993) – image from “One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity”

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In July, Martinez, Kara and the Three Point Marchers organized an ‘Absurdist Parade’ which began in Harrison Park (a.k.a. Zapata Park) a predominantly Mexican neighborhood and finished to the north and west in Garfield Park, a predominantly black West Side neighborhood. Residents from each of the two neighborhoods – who do not usually mix – participated in the free come-one-come-all parade. However effective or meretricious as gestures, the street components of both Manglano-Ovalle’s and Martinez and Kara’s projects were successful in that their content was fundamentally uncontrollable. They bristled with the nervous energy of a social event that knows neither its magnitude nor its consequences, until those present take responsibility for the event upon themselves and shape it into whatever they might.

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Daniel J. Martinez, Consequences of a Gesture, Chicago 1993. (credit)

“Daniel J. Martinez’ work “Consequences of a Gesture” (1993), was one of the events organized as part of “Culture in Action” in Chicago (1991-95), an ambitious series of public projects aimed at a radical re-definition of “public art.” It took the form of a parade developed by Martinez over two years and involving the participation of 35 community organizations and 1000 Mexican Americans and African Americans, children to the elderly. Participants paraded through three neighborhoods: Maxwell Street public market that was removed by the city the following year (1994) to make way for the University of Illinois’s expansion, thus an ode to the market’s demise after more than a century; and to two ethnically divergent areas of Chicago: African-American Garfield Park and Mexican-American Pilsen. For more information on this and recent works by Martinez, see: Culture in Action (Seattle: Bay Press, 1995); www.stretcher.org; Daniel Joseph Martinez: A life of Disobedience (Cantz, 2009), www.frieze.com/issue/article/culture_in_action; Exhibition Histories: Culture in Action and Project UNITÉ (London: Afterall Books, 2013), Tom Finkelpearl: What We Made – Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation (Duke University Press, 2013).” (credit)

Dread Scott, “Slave Rebellion Reenactment” (2019)

Credit: The Guardian, a still from video piece

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A community-engaged artist performance and film production that, on November 8-9, 2019, reimagined the German Coast Uprising of 1811, which took place in the river parishes just outside of New Orleans. Envisioned and organized by artist Dread Scott and documented by filmmaker John Akomfrah, Slave Rebellion Reenactment (SRR) animated a suppressed history of people with an audacious plan to organize and seize Orleans Territory, to fight not just for their own emancipation, but to end slavery. It is a project about freedom.

The artwork involved hundreds of reenactors in period specific clothing marching for two days covering 26 miles. The reenactment, the culmination of a period of organizing and preparation, took place upriver from New Orleans in the locations where the 1811 revolt occurred—with the exurban communities and industry that have replaced the sugar plantations as its backdrop. The reenactment was an impressive and startling sight—hundreds of Black re-enactors, many on horses, flags flying, in 19th-century French colonial garments, singing in Creole and English to African drumming.

Long March Project (2002-)

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Taking its title from the Chinese Red Army’s historical Long March from 1934 to 1936, “Long March—A Walking Visual Display” set out to recreate 20 sites along the 6000-mile historical trek, eventually realizing 12 over the span of 4 months, each composed of site-specific displays and discussions. Each iteration of the project featured: commissioned works created on site by artists from China and beyond; contributions from artists they met throughout the period of preparation, working in the varied strands of contemporary art and folk art; screenings and discussions of historical texts; and seminal conferences on visual culture attended by internationally renowned curators and theorists. The project explored the efficacy of a practice founded on marching in generating ideas and conversations.

More photos available in The Art of Walking: A Field Guide

Mona Hatoum, Performance Still [from Roadworks exhibition] (1985-95)

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white woman with shoes tied to her ankles walking forward

Mona Hatoum, Performance Still (1985–95)

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Performance Still 1985 records one of three street performances which Hatoum carried out in Brixton for the Roadworks exhibition organised in 1985 by the Brixton Artists Collective. The performance consisted of the artist walking barefoot through the streets of Brixton for nearly an hour, with Doc Marten boots, usually worn by both police and skinheads, attached to her ankles by their laces. Performance Still, printed and published ten years later turns the original documentary photograph of the performance into a work in its own right, and has therefore come to identify this aspect of Hatoum’s practice.

Gallery label, October 2013

Jeremy Deller, “Procession” (2009)

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: Jeremy Deller, Procession

: Jeremy Deller, Procession

: Jeremy Deller, Procession

“I like what has happened in Manchester, historically, politically, musically, and I’ve always enjoyed being there – so when I was asked to make a public artwork for Manchester International Festival in 2009, I assembled a procession of the city’s people and their activities. It was mostly a celebration of public space and the people occupying it: buskers, smokers, car modifiers, The Big Issue sellers and so on. One of the elements was Valerie’s Snack Bar, this café in Bury Market, which just seemed to be a great gathering place for OAPs. The snack bar was almost exactly replicated and put on the back of a lorry and taken for a spin. As with any procession, there are lots of contradictory elements: some are traditional, others are contemporary or even futuristic. I wanted in a way to try and make something a bit like a procession you would see on ‘The Simpsons’, a sort of social surrealist event full of bizarre, funny, wrong-seeming things.”

Melanie Manchot, “Walk (Square)” (2011)

photos of children marching

Walk (Square), 2011, Single Screen, HD, 20′40″

Walk (Square) forms part of an ongoing series of projects investigating collective gestures or situations enacted in public such as walking, dancing or celebrating. The work extends a practice based on an analysis of the construction of individual and collective identities and their performative representation through photography and moving image. Walking en masse—whether it be in processions, pilgrimages, in carnival or protest marches—forms the starting point for this video work made with 1000 Hamburg kids. Drawn into the centre of the city from all directions, with art as the ‘Pied Piper’, the work refers to current socio-political situations of protest as well as to recent research across different disciplines into the meanings of groups and crowds. The piece questions whether the act of walking may constitute a ‘form of speech’. On the square in front of Hamburg’s contemporary art museum a crowd of kids performs a simple walking choreography, based on Bruce Nauman’s video Walking in an Exaggerated Manner around the Perimeter of a Square, 1967– 1968, creating a shimmering form of movement that brieﬂy produces a moment of collectivity and visual coherence before breaking apart.

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“At first glance, Melanie Manchot’s work shows us what might be a demonstration, a procession or a parade in the centre of Hamburg. The differences between the three, though seldom observed, are crucial. T h e historian David Cannadine has observed that when the French “put their social structures on public display they have parades (which are intrinsically egalitarian), whereas the British have processions (which are innately hierarchical)”. Demonstrations can be either hierarchical or not but, unlike the other two categories, are impossible to fully impose order on.

In ‘Walk (Square)’, a thousand children flock into Hamburg’s central square – with “art as the ‘pied piper”‘, as she puts it. Once inside the square, the children undertake what Manchot calls a “simple walking choreography” based on the Bruce Nauman work ‘Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square’, seen elsewhere in this show. Manchot’s recreation of the earlier work in new form asks us to imagine how occupying public space has changed its meaning between ‘then’ and ‘now’. At the time of Nauman’s work, the purpose of protest was not in doubt, even if its efficacy was not universally accepted. Walking is, here, the means of occupying public space by traversing it. As Manchot puts it, “the act of walking constitutes a ‘form of speech'”. To walk – together – is in certain contexts a political act in the purest sense of the term. It is to ensure that one cannot be simply ‘walked over’ by those in positions of authority. To walk is to create “a moment of collectivity”, in the artist’s words.”

Lawrence Abu Hamdan, “Marches” (2005-09)

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Marches, is a project that started in 2005, the work been performed and exhibited for multiple organizations including Transmission Gallery Glasgow, C-E-M Lisbon, Artangel London 2008 and in Italy with Festival di Santarcangelo 2009. The chief concern of this project is to explore the auditory perception of our built environment.

At the centre of the Marches project is a series of performances that take place on the streets of towns and cities. These performances are choreographed marches in which a small group of 10 performers march planned routes through urban districts. These routes are primarily designed to include the most interesting acoustic/architectural dimensions of the town, connecting large halls, domed ceilings, glass walls, narrow corridors, piazzas, crowded spaces etc. The only costume the performers of Marches wear are specific shoes adapted for greater sonic effect, using combinations of hollow stiletto heels, thick wooden heels, tap plates and hobnails to create strange shoes that when stamped emit a sound that works to acoustically define the architectural space through which the wearer travels. The footwear is designed and adapted in collaboration with cobblers and shoe makers, during the Artangel project, the artist undertook a mini residency at Anthony Andrews Special Footwear and Orthotics.

Participants of the performances are choreographed to join and disperse at points of distinctive acoustic interest. Pathways are planned according to the most acoustically exciting way of navigating all the domed roofs, narrow corridors and reflective glass walls offered by the surrounding urban territory. Planning also involves sociological research and historiography; digging into the city’s history to find stories and accounts of parades, processions, marches, trudges and demonstrations. The resulting routes, illustrated in the maps/scores made, were harvested and mapped onto the current city form, intersecting new buildings and extinct pathways to create new navigations of the city.

Marches performances can be heard online here

Photographs here document recent exhibitions of Marches at AUB Art Gallery Beirut 2013 and Caja Madrid Barcelona 2012.

Francis Alÿs, “The Modern Procession” (2002)

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The Modern Procession, organized by artist Francis Alÿs (b.1959, Antwerp, Belgium) and presented by the Public Art Fund in collaboration with The Museum of Modern Art, is modeled after a traditional ritual procession. Beginning in front of MoMA at 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue at 9am, the procession parades through midtown Manhattan, crosses the Queensboro Bridge into Long Island City, marches along Queens Boulevard, and ends at the door of MoMA QNS (33rd Street at Queens Boulevard). Both festive and ceremonial, the procession makes the museum’s historic transition both visible and public, linking the two boroughs in a spectacular and memorable way.

A 12-member Peruvian brass band, Banda de Santa Cecilia, sets the pace for the procession. More than 150 uniformed participants carry reproductions of MoMA’s most famous works—Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel, and Alberto Giacometti’s Standing Woman—on handheld wooden carriages. The presence of these reproductions pays homage to the history of MoMA while celebrating the cultural and economic potential of bringing art into the streets. Artist Kiki Smith serves as a representative of contemporary art. Carried by fellow participants, Smith leads the spectacular procession, which also includes banners, dogs, and scattered rose petals.

Dominique Blain “Missa” (1992)

Dominique Blain “Missa” (1992)

100 pairs of army boots, mono-filament, metal grid, 700 x 700 cm

In the installation Missa, a hundred pairs of army boots suspended on nylon strings are arranged in a square grid. Raised slightly off the floor, the right-foot boots suggest the synchronised movement of military marching. The overall effect conjures up the destructive violence of political regimes that manipulate dehumanized troops like puppets. Although it was conceived in 1992, Missa continues to resonate wherever it is exhibited. This sensitive exploration of a military accessory, linked to individual soldiers but expressing a collective action, spans the history of wars and the atrocities they breed.

In her multidisciplinary practice, the Montréal artist Dominique Blain denounces the oppression that stems from relationships of power. She approaches historical references with restraint, using a few carefully chosen images and objects to arouse individual and collective memories. Leaving room for imagination, her socially engaged art gives viewers the leeway needed to reflect on the subject of war and totalitarianism. Blain’s work has been widely shown in Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia, notably at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and in the 1992 Sydney Biennale. [credit]

A nearly deafening silence immediately strikes the viewer of Blain’s remarkably spartan installation. This soundlessness continues to resonate – and change – as one walks around her three-dimensional grid of strings and shoes, filling in its absences with haunting narratives and dark associations. Ominous connections between facelessness and force, blind obedience and inhuman strength, a sense of belonging and one of being utterly lost gain clarity as one contemplates her austere memorial to war and its – often abstract – if all-too-real consequences.

– David Pagel, Dominique Blain, Art Forum, 1993

Dominique Blain “Missa” (1992-2012)