Charles Atlas
Scary, Scary, Community Fun, Death

Complex video installations and seminal films documenting dance and performance art have made Charles Atlas (b. St. Louis, Mo., 1949) a leader in the field of film and video art. Atlas rose to renown with projects on which he worked with choreographers including Merce Cunningham and Michael Clark as well as the fashion designer and performance artist Leigh Bowery. His network of creative collaborators largely coincides with his circle of friends: many of his works from the 1980s and 1990s are portraits of fellow protagonists of the New York underground scene and the contemporary milieu that scrutinize aspects of biopower and the politics of bodies and identity. The defining feature of Atlas’s work is his ongoing investigation of the expressive potentials of time-based media. He explores questions of the segmentation and structuring of the visual space as well as contemporary issues in the politics of representation. The exhibition at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, the artist’s first solo show in Switzerland, unites five video installations from the past two decades.

The exhibition was curated by Raphael Gygax.