Maria Hassabi

Special Event

Friday, September 16–Saturday, September 17, 2022

Location: ATRM Atrium
Ames Family Atrium

Ames Family Atrium

HERE, 2021. Installation view. Performer: Alice Heyward. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Thomas Poravas — *HERE*, 2021. Maria Hassabi. Installation view, Secession, Vienna. Performer: Alice Heyward. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Thomas Poravas

About The Event

Making its North American debut at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Maria Hassabi’s CANCELLED, a performative work for four female performers, moves within a soundscape that emphasizes an endless life span. The choreography utilizes Hassabi's signature style of stillness and deceleration, and displays representational female poses based on mannerisms throughout history. The use of verticality and frontality create a form of resistance both as a metaphor and as a reality, reflecting on ideas that are directly related to the work's title. Being meticulously crafted, CANCELLED evokes and questions the subtle interchanges of power between subjects.

Since the early 2000s, Hassabi has developed a unique artistic practice based on the relationship between the live body, the still image, and the sculptural object. Hassabi’s works reflect on concepts of time and the human figure while employing a variety of media to emphasize the complexity of formal organization. In most of Hassabi's works the performing body is the main subject, often embedded within imposing installations. In the context of the CMA's Ames Family Atrium, CANCELLED invites visitors to pause and take note of their own relationship to time, space, and the images that infiltrate their daily experience.

Hassabi’s methods for slowing down perception mirror FRONT International 2022’s curatorial attention to the long time frames that meaningful change—whether on a personal or social level—often requires.

The duration of the performance is approximately 60 minutes. Performances will take place on September 16 at 1:00 and 6:00 p.m. and on September 17 at 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.

Performers: Elena Antoniou, Maria Hassabi, Alice Heyward, Shelley Senter
Sound design: Stavros Gasparatos, Maria Hassabi
Outfits: Victoria Bartlett
Production/management: Natasha Katerinopoulos
Project coordinator: Alex J. Mathews
Curator: Noam Segal

CANCELLED was produced by the LUMA Foundation and premiered at LUMA ARLES as a result of the Artist-in-Residency Program. It was co-commissioned by and received additional support from FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, in partnership with VIA Art Fund.

FRONT exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are presented by Richard and Michelle Jeschelnig, with additional support from the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, Fleischner Family Charitable Foundation, the Louise H. and David S. Ingalls Foundation, and the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is proud to partner with FRONT International. All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Major annual support is provided by the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, Dick Blum (deceased) and Harriet Warm, Dr. Ben H. and Julia Brouhard, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Leigh and Andy Fabens, Michael Frank in memory of Patricia Snyder, the Sam J. Frankino Foundation, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Carl and Lu Anne Morrison, Henry Ott-Hansen, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, Mr. and Mrs. Michael F. Resch, Anne H. Weil, and Claudia C. Woods and David A. Osage.