Tim Etchells It’s moving from I to It – The Play.

British artist Tim Etchells presents It’s moving from I to It – The Play, the second BMW Tate Live performance of 2014, on 30 January at Tate Modern. Written and directed by Etchells, the work playfully explores the relation between language and objects, unpicking the theatrical possibilities of their interdependency.

The play is performed by two actors within a Tate Modern gallery. The actors refer to their setting through allusions to ways in which art is made and viewed. The work references minimalist deconstructive theatre, a recurring theme in Etchells’ practice. It’s moving from I to It – The Play is commissioned by London-based curatorial initiative FromContent as part of a the two-year project, It’s moving from I to It, that invited a range of artists to respond to concepts of fiction and narratives in curatorial practice. Etchells drew upon text, visual materials and performances from the project’s archive to explore issues of authorship, language, and institutional rhetoric.  

Etchells is an artist, author and artistic director of Forced Entertainment, a globally-renowned experimental theatre company founded in 1984.  Forced Entertainment has produced acclaimed performances all over the world such as Let the Water Run its Course (to the Sea That Made the Promise) 1986; Quizola 1996; and The Coming Storm 2012. Etchells’s practice includes writing and performance projects, neon and video works; and diverse collaborations with artists such as Elmgreen & Dragset. He has exhibited widely in Europe including Manifesta 7 in 2008.

BMW Tate Live is curated by Catherine Wood, Curator, Contemporary Art and Performance, Tate and Capucine Perrot, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern.

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Notes to Editors

It’s moving from I to It – The Play is commissioned and produced by the curatorial initiative FormContent, and is  part of Corpus, new collaborative network for commissioning performance-related work co-founded by If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam, Playground (STUK & M), Leuven and Tate Modern, London with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union. FormContent is a curatorial initiative, founded in 2007 with the intent of experimenting with exhibition formats and fostering collaborations that challenge the reciprocity of artistic and curatorial practices. It’s moving From I to It – The Play is kindly supported by The Arts Council.

BMW Tate Live 
BMW Tate Live is a long-term partnership between BMW and Tate that features innovative live performances and events including live web broadcast, in-gallery performance, seminars and workshops. BMW Tate Live aims to reach an international audience through new forms of art, addressing audiences changing needs, tastes and interests in art. The initiative creates a new space for collaboration and a programme that encompasses performance, film, sound, installation and learning – areas where artists can take greater risks and experiment freely. The programme investigates transformation in all its guises and aims to provoke debate on how art can affect intellectual, social and physical change. More information at tate.org.uk/bmwtatelive

BMW’s Cultural Commitment

For over 40 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in more than 100 cultural partnerships worldwide. The focus of this long-term commitment to culture is modern and contemporary art, jazz and classical music as well as architecture and design. BMW has worked with artists such as Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Koons, Zubin Metha, Daniel Barenboim and Anna Netrebko and commissioned architects such as Karl Schwanzer, Zaha Hadid and Coop Himmelbau. In London, BMW in partnership with the London Symphony Orchestra, hosts the BMW LSO Open Air Classics, a yearly live concert free of charge in Trafalgar Square, and supports Frieze Art Fair. The BMW Group takes absolute creative freedom in all the cultural activities it is involved in for granted – as this is just as essential for groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business. 

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