Artwork Information

By his own admission, "Yet Untitled" is arguably a shift in Sehgal’s practice. A return closer to his origins in dance. It is at once more abstract (less dialogical) and more vulnerable, as we watch humans perform patterns, rhythms, low to the ground, using sometimes base or primitive gestures. It is also one of the applauded of his works, having received the Golden Lion in 2013, it has been exhibited widely and among the few the artist has continued to short list in recent retrospectives of his work. As an acquisition, unlike many of his works which require quite fixed architecture, this work can operate in large atrium spaces and in carefully planned collection displays as ‘a work’, equally it can re-form in an isolated space as a solo exhibition project. This kind of flexibility is unique within his practice. We have also discussed the option of it existing in public spaces outside the museum, overall with this small number of interpreters, it is possible for the work to be displayed regularly.

From Jorg Heiser in Frieze Magazine: “Yet Untitled (2013), a work for which two to three performers crouch close together on the floor. They move like androids at a tai-chi course, or become a human beatbox, as if their vocal chords and clicking tongues were generating the energy that keeps the androids running. A third interpreter (Sehgal’s preferred term) joins them. It’s like a relay race without the baton: there is a zone of synchronicity in which the new arrival imitates the others before one of them leaves (a pattern I first saw in Sehgal’s 2003 work Kiss, in which a couple in ordinary clothes, standing, kneeling or lying down, perform a slow motion, smoothly transitioning sequence of kisses from art history, from Rodin to Brâncusi to Koons).”