Watch Now: Jimmy Robert and Maria Hassabi in Conversation with Kelly Kivland

Overseen by independent curator Jeppe Ugelvig, Frieze London Talks 2021 focused on artistic collaboration and economies of exchange.

Maria Hassabi is an artist and choreographer working with live performance, installation, sculpture, photography and video. Her  works have been presented in theaters, museums and public spaces including Secession, Vienna (2021); Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis (2019); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018); K20, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2018); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2017); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2016); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2015); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva (2019, 2012); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2015); The Kitchen, New York, and have also been featured in group exhibitions such as documeta14, Kassel (2017); Performa, New York (2019, 2013, 2009); 55th Venice Biennale (2013) amongst others. Hassabi has received the 2019 Performa Malcolm McClaren Award; a 2016 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie'' Award; 2015 Herb Alpert Award; 2012 President’s Award for Performing Arts from LMCC; 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship; 2009 Grants to Artists Award from Foundation for Contemporary Arts. She holds a BFA from California Institute of the Arts and is an Onassis Decade Resident 2019-2029. She’s based in NY and Athens. 

Jimmy Robert's (b.1975, Guadeloupe) multidisciplinary practice encompasses performance, photography, film and collage, frequently collapsing distinctions between these mediums. Robert's interest in how the body can be personified through materials and the reverse is a force that integrates his longtime work with performance with his larger practice. Robert has choreographed performance within exhibition spaces, in relation to existing architectural structures, as well as restaging, reframing or sampling historical performances. The frequent citation of moments from art history, film and literature is characteristic of his deeply layered narratives. Robert was the subject of a mid-career survey at Nottingham Contemporary in 2020. This exhibition is currently on view at Museion, Bolzano until 29 August and will travel to CRAC Occitanie, Sète in October 2021. His most recent performance ‘Joie Noire’ premiered in 2019 at KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin and travelled to Kaaitheater, Brussels. Robert’s performances have also been presented at Tate Britain, London; MoMA, New York and Migros Museum, Zurich. Recent solo exhibitions include The Hunterian, Glasgow (2021); La Synagogue De Delme, France (2018); Museum M, Leuven (2017); Power Plant, Toronto (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2012); and Jeu de Paume, Paris (2012). Currently, he is participating in ‘Balade’, Charlottenburg. His film ‘Cruising’ is screening at Delphi Filmpalast every Saturday, from 11–1pm, until 22 August 2021. His work is also included in the group exhibition ‘Wild Frictions’ at Kunstraum Kreuzberg until 19 September 2021. Robert will participate in the 6th Ural Industrial Biennial in September 2021 and the Aichi Triennale in Summer 2022. He will have solo exhibitions at Künstlerhaus Bremen in February 2022 and Kunsthalle Baden-Baden in Autumn 2022.  Jimmy Robert currently lives and works in Berlin.

Kelly Kivland is Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions at Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University, Columbus. Previously, Kivland was a Curator at Dia Art Foundation (2011-21), where she organized exhibitions and projects focused on Laylah Ali, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Carl Craig, Maren Hassinger, Thomas Hirschhorn, Nancy Holt, Joan Jonas, Isabel Lewis, Nick Mauss and Ken Okiishi, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, and Joëlle Tuerlinckx, among others. She holds a master’s degree in Curatorial Studies, from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. At Bard, she commissioned Jimmy Robert and Maria Hassabi, Counter-relief (CCS Bard), 2011.