Two casts of Roman statues have been in the collection of the Munich Art Academy for over 200 years and are marked by iconoclastic assaults. In their fragile condition, they vividly demonstrate the twists and turns of history. For the exhibition, the two larger-than-life plaster figures were transported from the basement of the Academy to the Colossus Hall. A room that was specially designed and built for the staging of a Colossus. With its representative apse, the room becomes a stage on which the sculptures’ agencies (Powers of action) are questioned in a play between exaltation and ironisation.
The title of the exhibition "moving monuments" has a double meaning: "moving monuments" refers to the influence of these works of art on their recipients, which can be both positive and negative. Feelings that are evoked by means of mechanisms and were consciously created in the works of art. With the help of their bodies, five contemporary dancers explored the two plaster casts in instant compositions through movement sequences arising from mirroring, repetition or changes of perspective in order to develop possibilities of breaking out of and undercutting these mechanisms. In constantly changing constellations, the sculptures are choreographically aligned by the performers in relation to the space, whereby they interact with the visitors in ever new ways. The mobility of the sculptures is meant as a proposal to allow new perspectives on the handling of historical artefacts and monuments and to point out common modes of representation of political and educational relations.
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