Valentin Torrens [Spain]
"The Bet"

performance
18:00 Saturday 1st March 2003

installaction exhibition
14.00 - 18.00 Saturday/Sunday 2nd - 23rd march 2003
[view by appointment]

Valentin Torrens proposes an interaction with the audience based on his personal interest in illusion and trickery. The audience will be asked to place bets using beer as currency to forecast the probable development and outcome of the performance. Using a specially designed set of playing cards Torrens will use dexterity and willfulness combined with his own anarchic & idiosyncratic actions often involving smashing tables and setting books on fire to question our certainty of what is actually taking place.

Utilising a video projection of a previous performance to 'trace' relationships with the present.
Involving the audiences thoughts as 'traces' to weave waves into the action.
Displacement of the action from the 'trace' of previous action to the present 'live' situation.
Exploration of hazards by these combinations. Palimpsest on the 'traces'.

From Barcelona Torrens has been making performance actions & installations since the mid-nineteen eighties. He has produced work throughout Europe, USA and South East Asia. His art practice continually explores the relationship between reality & illusion.
[sotto voice] : 'The Artist as Shadow.......' [cue: wicked laughter. . . .]