“BULKY” PERFORMANCE AND INSTALLATION BY ALEXANDRE BAVARD IN DOWNTOWN FORT SMITH

Public Art Event & Performance
Client:  UNEXPECTED
Location: Downtown Fort Smith, North West Arkansas

Artists: Alexandre Bavard

Service: Concept, Curation, development and Production

Justkids invited french visual and performance artist Alexandre Bavard to present his immersive visual and performance work: Bulky, a system of movement and notation generated by the energy of the graffiti tag. Downtown Fort Smith is the first american city to present the french multidisciplinary artist’s performance project, adapted to the context of the North West Arkansas region. 

Bulky reinterprets the movement and psychic energy generated by the graffiti tag as an inherently ephemeral and illegal medium of expression. The performance piece evokes a reconsideration of street art as a pure and original form or expression and interrogates the neutralizing effect of it’s transmutation to gallery and institutional spaces.

The performance and exhibition was presented to around 100 attendees within a former warehouse venue featuring a series of new sculptural work  curated by Justkids and activated by the 30 minute performance piece choreographed and musically composed by Alexandre Bavard, featuring a collaboration with Western Arkansas Ballet dancers.

“In my artistic practice, I try to maintain my spontaneity and perspective close to the streets. What is interesting, in my opinion, is the conceptual aspects of the act that can be brought back into contemporary art. Graffiti is a pure, noble aesthetic pursuit; a tag on a wall is self-sufficient. With BULKY you can experience all the strength of a throw up made in the street, it is for me even more violent and visceral.”

-Alexandre Bavard