Steven Cohen and Elu come from very different backgrounds.  Elu is an Afrikaans-speaking Pagan trained in classical ballet and contemporary dance.  Steven Cohen is an English-speaking Jew trained in psychology and self-taught in visual art.  When they met in Johannesburg in 1997, they were both renegades of the South African art world.  Since then, their collaborative and independent performances have gained substantial attention at home and abroad.  It has not always been positive though.  They have had to confront censorship and prejudice many times, both within and outside the art world.

 

Since 1998, the artists have taken many of their performances uninvited to unexpected places—a rugby match, a bridal fair, a rural village, a busy street, a squatter camp, a dog show—challenging assumptions, discrimination and complicity at every turn, somersault and pirouette.

 

They have taken physical and emotional risks, shamed themselves, and confused, amused, and shocked others.  They have bound their bodies and restricted their movement using props and costumes, struggling against the limitations they place on themselves, but also those imposed on them by society.  Their performances are tests of endurance and explorations of disability.  They are comments on what it means to be challenged, while confronting society with those elements of itself that are usually repressed or ignored.

 

This exhibition considers how success can be realized in failure and freedom found through restriction.