Conditions of an Ideal: a performance by Alexis Blake

Experience this special performance by artist Alexis Blake through two drop-in sessions.Drawing inspiration from Diana Watts’ 1914 publication The Renaissance of the Greek Ideal, the performance will take place surrounded by the iconic Parthenon sculptures. In collaboration with Block Universe and Delfina Foundation.

Block Universe is London’s annual festival of performance art celebrating cutting-edge performance at the cross-section of contemporary visual art, dance and music. Following a successful launch in 2015, Block Universe returns for its second edition across major institutions and unique venues from 30 May to 5 June 2016, with an expanded public programme.

With new performance commissions and presentations taking place at venues from the ICA to the Royal Academy of Art; the British Museum to Sadler’s Wells, Block Universe presents work by some of the most exciting UK-based and international performance artists practicing today. With the theme of The Future Perfect, performances will explore expression of self in an increasingly technologically sophisticated society, the construction of identity alongside body enhancement, ageing and immortality. Using the motifs of shared experience, individualism and anonymity as experienced online to locate the virtual in physical time and space, artists will focus on historical and future representations of the self as embodied in the present.

Artists performing new commissions and exclusive UK premieres of their work include niv Acosta, Alexis Blake, Jesse Darling, Philip Ewe, Lina Hermsdorf, Grace Schwindt and Mårten Spångberg, with further names to be announced. Taking a fresh look at what performance in contemporary art can mean today, works span a wide range and include sculptural elements, song, choreography, movement, video, image, text and the spoken word.