Donna Huanca @ Zabludowicz

This exhibition is the first performance-led commission in the space, with daily performances from painted models activating a series of new site-responsive architectural and sculptural installations in the 19th century former Methodist chapel.
Huanca’s work draws attention to the body and in particular the skin, which is simultaneously the surface on which our personhood is inscribed and the surface through which we experience the world around us. Huanca examines conventions of behaviour in our interaction with bodies in space and the invisible histories that are accumulated through those gestures. By exposing the naked body and concealing it under layers of paint, cosmetics and latex, Huanca’s performers confront our instinctive reactions to flesh, which becomes both a familiar, decorative object and an abstract, inaccessible subject.
For this exhibition, Huanca has designed a three storey glass structure to respond to the height and neo-classical stucco work of the Main Hall. This translucent structure will become increasingly opaque during the show as Huanca’s models perform within it. The slow, deliberate movements of the models enact private rituals and meditations that mark the space with their presence, eventually casting off their prosthetic layers to leave behind a very visceral absence.