Jimmy Robert makes Super 8 films in which the performance or re-staging of minimal, everyday actions is shown to be exotic and tender at the same time. Robert’s performances combine social commentary with lyrical expression. Ian White is a curator of artists’ film and video and a writer, as well as a creator of multi-format work which utilises slide, video, text and sound in the form of events.
6 things we couldn’t do but can do now is Robert and White’s first collaboration as artists. This project consisted of two live performances and a related installation including drawings, paintings, objects and a video recording of New York choreographer Yvonne Rainer’s seminal dance work Trio A 1978. The performance work to which the installation related proposed a minimalist-style grid of objects, with and against which actions were carried out. The performance and installation presented an ongoing process that explored the possibility of exchange and made human relations manifest.
