Doris Uhlich. downstairs | Sommerszene Salzburg

Doris Uhlich brings movement to Museum der Moderne on Mönchsberg. Inside and outside its bare concrete shafts, a performance devised especially for the venue will move up and down the stairs. Two of the most famous artworks of the 20th century show a female figure descending a staircase. Marcel Duchamp’s Nu descendant un escalier no. 2 was rejected and ridiculed because of its avantgarde formal vocabulary. Gerhard Richter’s painting Ema (Akt auf einer Treppe) was not only criticised for its view of the female body, it became the target of a knife attack in the 1980s. In Doris Uhlich’s performance downstairs the (female) body is no longer the motif, instead it quivers on the stairs so confidently that it reminds us how reactionary forces are now attempting to turn back the clock again. On the stairs, get set, go!

For many years Doris Uhlich has developed extremely successful projects in a variety of forms – from stage pieces to site-specific performances. She prefers to work with people of differing biographies and physical attributes, opening the dancefloor to people with physical ­ disabilities, demonstrating the potential of nakedness ­ beyond eroticism and provocation and exploring the relationship between humans and machines in manifold ways. She has received numerous prizes, including most recently the Austrian Art Prize in the Performing Arts section.

A collaboration with Szene Salzburg.