tris vonna-michell

Tris Vonna-Michell

“As a way of consolation, I convinced myself that there is an overt history that we deem as real; there is a covert history, which since

being hidden, relinquishes its historical position. However, the latter still belongs. The linkage is there, and it is this combination that creates

our sense of history. There is no secrecy in the place of history. It is the importance of the hidden avenues that informs and creates the events

that we believe are history. Secrecy has no home.” -Tris Vonna-Michell from Searching For Seabald. Who Is Reinhold Hahn?

Tris Vonna-Michell’s work consists of stories. He is searching for hidden, yet undiscovered stories or mysterious identities from his own family’s background.

For instance his mother’s childhood in World War II torn Germany or in other fictive/real persons from his fathers unknown past. This content results in

stories firmly positioned in the present by the storyteller with the goal to decipher the past. Mr Vonna-Michell presents bodies of work such as Searching for

Seabald. Who is Renhold Hahn? (2004-2006) and Finding Chopin: In Search of Holy Quail (2005-ongoing).

Tris Vonna-Michell incorporates an explorer, a contemporary Homer, Richard Long, W.G. Sebald or don Quijote. Similar to a troubadour he is

telling stories in meetings/performances – anecdotes that leaves the listener in an intriguing limbo between fact and fiction. Vonna-Michell is working in a

tradition of relational aesthetics, focused in how history is created and constructed. He is readdressing an oral tradition of storytelling that has in

contemporary information culture, been set aside for a text based knowledge.

The artist’s practice is based in the urge to examine the potential within the narration as being able to, as a complete (re) construction, create new

worlds. Tris Vonna-Michell’s subject matter is expansive in its character and often means longer commitments from the artist. His work contains a

network of branches of information from journeys in Europe, Berlin and Paris. Stories are draw from various meetings with people, maps, tickets,

photographs, video documentations, written letters, and even his own postcards all of which he presents in performances and/or in installations.

Tris Vonna-Michell

By Adam Carr

What defines and characterises the work of Tris Vonna-Michell and separates it from much

art production today is its particular mode of dissemination. It leaves little material trace yet

directs an audience’s attention to the essence of storytelling rather than to the concept of

dematerialisation—a surprisingly old-age and orthodox method for an artist who has, in just a

few years, produced a constellation of work that is at once completely refreshing, critically

challenging and highly unique.

Delivered with great rapidity and poised eloquence, but often divested of any linear

structure, Vonna-Michell’s work takes the form of stories, which, key to its meaning, are

personally narrated by the artist. While one might consider the mode of transmission that his

works take—that of word of mouth—as an intended reference to early performance and

conceptual art; they are not concerned with art history in so as much a reference to those

movements. Rather than having a predominant focus on the tension between audience and

performer, or to foreground a set of questions regarding the constitutive means of an artwork,

Vonna-Michell’s works take place by more discreet means and stand affirmatively suggestive

rather than explicit. That said, they also posses the ability to take audiences by surprise and go

so far as to renew ones interest in what they considered an art experience to be.

Those who should witness the artist’s works will be lead through narratives that

oscillate between fact and fiction, truth and false, and which encompass vastly diverging

moments in history. What is particularly intriguing and perhaps most instantly apparent

during the experience of his works is the tightly flawless manner by which they are

articulated—in such a way that suggests the artist is simply relaying stories already told. Yet,

Vonna-Michell’s tales are in fact the result of a personal craft and follow after years of

research. In what seems to be an effortless forging of links and interconnections between

entirely contrasting subject matter, the artists pieces make visible the not yet seen. One story,

for example, might rail through such disparately ranging subjects as World War II; Joy

Division; Fascism; Orson Welles’ radio transmission in 1938; Tokyo Rose and radio

imprisonment in Tokyo in1945; Bertolt Brecht and GDR radio fallacy freedom; 1950s Berlin;

and teenage homelessness in Japan. In addition, his works comprise partial accounts of

personal experiences that he turns into as much significance as the points of widespread

historical importance that he draws upon. Should one have arrived beyond a particular

performance, the artist accompanies the narration of each story with various materials, which

are used during as props but soon after turn to relics or traces of the stories they are part and

assist for public scrutiny. To date, these have included photographs, photocopies, slides, and

also other materials and objects such as ice, egg timers and paper shredders that both

highlight the passage of time and point to the ephemeral and transitory aspects at the core of

his works. Recently, objects have played more of an eminent role inside his works, insofar as

to command and dictate the activation of the performance of a work entirely.

To elaborate on the artist’s pieces with rigorous detail— particularly the

content of each story—is, however, a difficult task. To describe a work is to almost enter a

rivalry with the works themselves. On the one hand, the position of a writer is given a

platform as a notary of each story, to record or to trace each event and therefore to have a

responsibility over the conservation of each piece. On the other, to convey the experience of

witnessing the work proves always ancillary and mere substitute to the actual encounter, as

one work is never the same always subjected to constant transition and perpetual change.

Moreover, his works are to be directly experienced and exist in the very moment between

narration and being a recipient to this narration and also within our task to piece together the

fragments at which his performances leave off.

London September 2007

Installationview, Art Cologne, 2011. Tris Vonna-Michell, Slides, photos and sound

Tris Vonna-Michell (UK) Selected images courtesy Milliken Gallery

Installationview, Art Cologne, 2011. Tris Vonna-Michell, Photos and text


Installationview, Art Cologne, 2011. Tris Vonna-Michell, Slides, photos and sound


Installation view: Tris Vonna-Michell, 2009. Installation with slide projection and sound, Variable size. At Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm


Tris Vonna-Michell, Stockholm Artfair February 2006


Market ArtFair, Stockholm, 2006.


Seizure, Performance and installation, Milliken Gallery, 2007


Seizure, Performance and installation, Milliken Gallery, 2007¬


Installation view, Finding Chopin: In Search of Holy Quail, Acts 1-6, 2005-2007, Milliken Gallery


Tris Vonna-Michell, Down the Rabbit Hole, Performance and installation, Milliken Gallery, Stockholm August 1 to September 9, 2006


Down the Rabbit Hole, Performance and installation, Milliken Gallery, Stockholm August 1 to September 9, 2006


Tris Vonna-Michell, Down the Rabbit Hole, Performance and installation, Milliken Gallery, Stockholm August 1 to September 9, 2006


Down the Rabbit Hole, Performance and installation, Milliken Gallery, Stockholm August 1 to September 9, 2006


Hahn/Huhn project, 31st October - 5th November 2006, Documentation of the hahn/huhn project being performed at the Koeln Messe (Open Space). A week of unannounced on/off storyt…


Down the Rabbit Hole, Performance and installation, Milliken Gallery, Stockholm August 1 to September 9, 2006¬


Papierstau, Performance 31st May - 23rd June 2007, Center, Berlin


Aftonbladet 27th October 2009

Dagens Nyheter October 2007

TRIS VONNA-MICHELL Born 1982, Southend-on-Sea, United Kingdom, lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2011 Metro Pictures, New York 2010 Wasteful Illuminations, T293, Naples Not a Solitary Sign or Inscription to Even Suggest a Ending, Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles Tris Vonna-Michell, Capitain Petzel, Berlin No more racing in circles - just pacing within lines of a rectangle, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea 2009 Capstans, Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg Finding Chopin: Endnotes, Jeu de Paume, Paris Tris Vonna-Michell, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm Auto-Tracking: Ongoing Configurations, Jan Mot, Brussels Tris Vonna-Michell, X Initiative, New York Auto-Tracking-Auto-Tracking, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich Studio A: Monumental Detours / Insignificant Fixtures, GAMeC, Bergamo 2008 Tris Vonna-Michell, Cabinet Gallery, London Auto-Tracking, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich The Trades of Others’, T293, Naples 2007 Tall Tales and Short Stories, Cubitt, London Puzzlers, Kunstverein Braunschweig Cuboid, Braunschweig Tris Vonna-Michell, Witte de With, Rotterdam 2006 Faire un effort, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels Down the Rabbit-Hole, Milliken Gallery, Stockholm SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS AND PERFORMANCES 2011 The Other Tradition, Wiels, Brussels Balustrade/Enfolds, La Casa Encendida, Madrid Britisch Art Show 7, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham 2010 Stories and Stages, New Frankfurt International, Frankfurt am Main

British Art Show 7, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain

Exhibition, Exhibition, Exhibition, Catella di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli Performance, Museo Marino Marini, Florence Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance, S R Guggenheim Museum, NY Untitled, Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam NineteenEightyFour, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York ACT VII: Of Facts and Fables, Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam Leipzig Calendar Works, Project Kaufhaus Joske, Leipzig A Performance Cycle, Nomas Foundation, Rome 2009 Lecture Performance, Cologne Kunstverein, Cologne Accecare l’ascolto / Aveugler l’écoute / Blinding the ears, Artissima, Turin 5 x 5 Castelló 09, Espai d'art contemporani de Castelló EACC, Valencia This World & Nearer Ones, Creative Time, New York ars viva 08/09. Inszenierung / Mise en scene, Atelier Augarten Contemporary, Vienna Spatial Works, Färgfabriken, Stockholm

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS AND PERFORMANCES CONTINUED 2009 Critical applause 3: Tris Vonna-Michell, CCA, Glasgow Finding Chopin, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg Art Cologne / Open Space (with Cabinet), London The Generational: Younger than Jesus, New Museum, New York Just in the dark/Solo al buio, Mercati di Traiano, Rome The Front Room, Contemporary Art Museum, Saint Louis Ars viva 08/09. Inszenierung / Mise en scene, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach The Space of Words, Mudam Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg I Repeat Myself When Under Stress, MOCAD Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit IASPIS Open House, IASPIS, Stockholm Altermodern: Tate Triennial, 2009, Tate Britain, London A spoken word exhibition, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead 2008 Speak and Spell, performance at Vienna Art Week, Vienna Storyteller – Organizing Time and Space, 0047, Oslo Lieber Künstler, erzähle mir!, Kunstverein Hildesheim, Hildesheim Stone-Paper-Scissors, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU), Berlin Kunst Im Heim, Capitain Petzel, Berlin ars viva 08/09. Inszenierung / Mise en scene, Museum im Kulturspeicher, Würzburg Bending the Word / MATRIX 226, BAM/PFA - UC Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley Time Crevasse, Yokohama Triennal 2008, Yokohama ICA:60 Past, Present and Future, performance at ICA - Institute of Contemporary Arts, London Fia Backström: That social space between speaking and meaning, White Columns, New York The Store, Tulips & Roses, Vilnius Experiment Marathon Reykjavík, Reykjavík Art Museum, Reykjavík Oral Culture, performance at Jan Mot, Brussels Tate Triennial 2009 Prologue 1, Tate Britain, London Self-Storage, CCCA - California College of the Arts, Metro Self Storage, San Francisco Of this Tale, I cannot Guarantee A Single Word, Royal College of Art Galleries, London 5th berlin biennial for contemporary art, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2007 Monumental Detours / Insignificant Fixtures, performance at KW, Berlin Performa 07, The second Visual Art Performance Biennal, New York Playground, Stuk Performance Festival, Leuven The Year of the Human Sciences, performance at Hebbel am Ufer (HAU), Berlin Experiment Marathon, Serpentine Gallery, London Floating Territories, Evens Foundation, Transbiennial Project, Istanbul and Athens The Present Order, Museum de Hallen, Haarlem The Moment You Realise You Are Lost, Johann König, Berlin KölnShow2, European Kunsthalle, Cologne PRIZES AND AWARDS Bâloise Art Prize 2008, Art 39 Basel (with T293, Naples) Ars Viva Prize 2008 RESIDENCY 2009 Focal Point Gallery Residency, Southend-on-Sea 2008 IASPIS Residency, Stockholm CURATED INSTALLATIONS 2008 Three Minutes, Cubitt, London

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