In this performance piece, Ed Atkins recites Gilbert Sorrentino's poem "The Morning Roundup" (1971), interspersed with songs. "The Morning Roundup" is a poem frustrated by the finitude of all things and the promise and failure of language to provide comfort or reparation. The poem's brevity reinforces this experience, so that each time Atkins recites it, it moves further away from his failed attempt to communicate sentiment: the weather, love, the past; that which is gone forever. There is the poem and then there are songs.
For this performance, Atkins has worked with Musarc, and Musarc Associate Director Sam Belinfante.
Ed Atkins
Ed Atkins was born in 1982 in Oxford and now lives and works in Copenhagen. His work has been recognised internationally with solo exhibitions at institutions including The New Museum, New York; K21, Dusseldorf; SMK, Copenhagen; Stedelijk, Amsterdam, and the Serpentine Gallery, London. Atkins’ work is held in major collections including Tate, Centre Pompidou, Stedelijk Museum and MoMA, New York, among many others.
Musarc
Musarc is one of the UK’s foremost experimental choirs. Founded by Joseph Kohlmaier at the School of Art, Architecture and Design, London Metropolitan University in 2008, the ensemble has developed a distinct reputation for its interdisciplinary and research-led approach to music and performance, and the space it affords artists and singers to experiment with new ideas.
Sam Belinfante
Sam Belinfante is an artist living and working in London. Recent exhibitions include I See a Voice, The National Festival of Making (2023) and On the Circulation of Blood (Creative Fokestone Triennial, 2021). Recent performances include On Falling Short, ICA, London and Tinguely Museum, Basel (2024–25) and The Long, very long Journey with Laure Prouvost at Kunshalle Wien, Vienna (2023).
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