Michelangelo Miccolis
Writer, Producer, Curator (CH, MX)
Michelangelo Miccolis (1981, Mexico) is an arts practitioner based between Zurich and Mexico City, whose performance-based practice extends into various formats, from participatory workshops to writing, production and curation. He is the founder and curator of IMMATERIAL, an annual performance program at Material Art Fair in Mexico City, since 2017. From 2017-19, he was guest curator for Cabaret Voltaire (CH), later joining Shedhalle Zurich's new curatorial board in Spring 2020.Beginning in Autumn 2020, Miccolis began a collaboration with artist Cally Spooner as visiting Professors of Performance Studies for the MA Program at Iuav University, Venice (IT).
Since 2005, Miccolis has worked internationally as a performer, curator, and/or producer on projects by renowned artists and institutions including: Dora García, Tino Sehgal, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Carlos Amorales, Romeo Castellucci & Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, La Biennale di Venezia, Fondazione Trussardi, Tate Modern, Palais de Tokyo, Museo Reina Sofia, Gropius Bau and Centre d'Art Contemporain Geneva.
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Why and how did you become a curator?
I started my involvement within the contemporary art scene as a young performer in my early 20s in Venice, working at the Biennial after a couple of very lucky encounters. When I was studying for my Masters, I met Tino Seghal at the German pavilion, and in the same year, the Italian theatre director Romeo Castelucci was teaching a workshop at my university. These two meetings were key for me to get acquainted with the performance scene. My interest in performance comes from my prior fascination with film at the time, however these two encounters really made me reconsider my desire and involvement in my future professional life. Especially during the first years of performing, I took advantage of moving around a lot; I was constantly touring and I felt like I was gaining a lot of access in terms of being able to see how, for instance, performance events function. I developed a very specific interest and knowledge in performance practices and production that grew from the relationships that began to weave while travelling from place to place. So I worked predominantly as a performer for about ten years, and had a few more really crucial encounters, for example with Dora Garcia, who changed the script. Dora made me feel like I was more so a part of the work than I had been previously with Tino and Romeo, instead I finally felt a sense of agency to actually experiment and give my take within the practice of someone else's.
Meeting Dora has been quite special for me. I was slowly able to give myself a bit more credit for all the performative labour that I had been doing. I think I've worked mostly within the tradition of time based exhibitions - a recent tradition of the past maybe 20 years where works are introduced in the gallery space with the expectation to be shown, activated and maintained throughout long periods of time. I've always been impressed with the spectacle of it, yet as I saw more contexts and was involved in more works I became more keenly aware of the sometimes questionable ethics behind this genre's production. It can be a bit blurry, as most of the time the 'artist is present' for the opening of the exhibition, and what happens is that the maintenance of the work, and all that labor is done by us, the performers (and producers), which is almost always undervalued by the institution. But I should answer your question ... So 'why I became a curator' - Well it was a very organic process. I somehow stepped into curation in 2014 when I moved back to my birthplace, Mexico City --my mom is Mexican, my dad is Italian, I was born in Mexico, but lived in Italy until 2014-- and I decided to kind of leave everything I knew behind and move to this very exciting place that I had been visiting since I was born. I spoke the Spanish I had learned from my Mexican mother and grandmother, but I appear as a ginger cis white man, even though I'm mixed--in my excitement I'm not sure I understood the unique position and privileges that gave me. New in town, doors began to open to me, until one day when I sat down with the director of the still young independent art fair, Material, I was able to pitch a performance program and because of my experience I was given carte blanche to program whomever I could with the resources provided. In Europe, at the time, that would not have been possible, as a performer, not having a background in curation, I wouldn't be given the same opportunity at such a scale so immediately.
Since my first edition of IMMATERIAL, people have begun to give me credit for my work as a curator-- but the intention, the desire and the input was somewhat anomalous compared to, I would say, the tradition of curation that I've observed in other people. So, first and foremost, I started this program, IMMATERIAL, to showcase a selection of works that I feel like haven't been shown enough outside of Europe. And because the fair attracts over 20,000 people over four days of course, that gave me a big platform. But at the same time, retrospectively, I had ended up undervaluing my own labor. This opportunity I received was fantastic and I felt that I had to be appreciative of the fact that they were providing me with any space at all. And I wasn't able, in fact, to define a very clear structure of how this was going to be maintained over time. I never really received a contract from the fair; in some way they took advantage of the fact that I was bringing works of artists who I have very close relationships with, and although I was receiving the support of the artists who were trusting me to have their works being delegated, it also meant a kind of DIY scenario, for the first edition for instance, where I was the one in charge to both producing and performing the majority of the works that I was presenting.
I was starting to develop a practice of relationships where if I was in charge of curating and producing these works, I was given permission to activate them. I kept working as a performer for other people, I kept producing works by others, especially with Dora and later with Cally Spooner, for their institutional shows. So as a producer, up until 2020, my relationship with institutions has always been kind of secondhand. I was brought in by the artists and the terms of employment were always a bit unclear - other artists have been invited to exhibit and then I happen to agree with them about engaging in the production, but for the institution I cannot have my role fully recognized as such. So to make a long story short, it's 10 years later, and now I've been invited to work with a new team of directors in Zurich, at a space called Shedhalle, with a proposal to turn the institution into a process-based institution. They are trying to challenge the way institutions function by setting up a structure where new terms of collaboration can be established, long term.
To talk about it we use the word the protozone - both a prototype, and in the tradition of science fiction, a "zone" of experimentation. We are assuming the responsibility of trying to define a new exhibition scenario, where the artists are not expected to deliver a finalized work at the moment the exhibition opens.
When it comes to roles in this context, and tokenisation, I work predominantly with artists who identify as fem/female and/or queer because it's something that I feel more comfortable with.
And I really do work with them through a process of research, or usually I try to think of commissioning new works.
Shedhalle is not a big institution, located in a beautiful area on the outer edge of the city, right in front of the lake. I was quite touched to see there's been a returning audience, durational events, food being prepared and served and that's really because the two directors are very much engaged with the idea that if we want people to feel comfortable, we also have to provide comfort for them to stick around.
In Mexico, most of the programs that I was developing were mostly with female identifying artists, at the time. Like I said, a lot of people are close collaborators and have become friends over time, and that is definitely what I cherish the most when I look back at the work we have done together.
Some of them are uncompromising and really confront the shortcomings of institutions. I have to make sure that they are challenging myself, and I allow myself to feel vulnerable, especially when there is a trust built over time working together: with some of them we have already collaborated in the past and I know we'll bring something into our work together because of our views on performing and because of our different identities.
As a performer, I also know that when I curate something I have to care as well for their condition, and make sure they are ok throughout, that they are not performing for too long etc. I have performed for too many hours in the cold in really extreme, unsustainable conditions and as a curator I cannot expect the performer to work like that just for the 'sake of art'.