Zhana Ivanova

Ongoing Retrospective (Chapter 2)

Zhana Ivanova, Ongoing Retrospective (Chapter 2), Kunsthalle Basel, 2016. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Zhana Ivanova, Ongoing Retrospective (Chapter 2), Kunsthalle Basel, 2016. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Zhana Ivanova, Ongoing Retrospective (Chapter 2), Kunsthalle Basel, 2016. Courtesy Zhana Ivanova and Collection Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin, Paris. Photo: Philipp Hänger/Kunsthalle Basel

Zhana Ivanova, Ongoing Retrospective (Chapter 2), Kunsthalle Basel, 2016. Photo: Zlatko Micic/Kunsthalle Basel

Zhana Ivanova, Ongoing Retrospective (Chapter 2), Kunsthalle Basel, 2016. Photo: Zlatko Micic/Kunsthalle Basel

Zhana Ivanova, poster for the exhibition, Ongoing Retrospective (Chapter 2), Kunsthalle Basel, 2016. Design: Hammer

Exhibition text and related events (PDF)
Selected press clippings (PDF)

This is the second chapter of an ongoing project that reverses the typical nature of the retrospective exhibition: not only is the Bulgarian performance artist Zhana Ivanova (b. 1977) at the beginning of her career, but, for her exhibition, we are looking forward instead of backward. Exhibitions will be staged chapter by chapter, for years to come, creating a retrospective that takes form over time. In this chapter we restage Ivanova’s very first performance piece, Borrowed Splendour, from 2007, which reveals the foundations of the artist’s use of simple props and instructional scripts to expose mundane but often invisible codes of human behavior.