Dora García, Just because everything is different, it does not mean that anything has changed

García uses the exhibition space as a platform to investigate the relationship between the visitor, the artwork and the place. To this end, she often draws on participation and performance. Through minimal changes, the exhibition space is converted into a different experience for each visitor, who leaves it with his or her perceptions altered, or at least with a degree of scepticism and doubt.

The stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce, one of the most fascinating and tragic personalities of the revolutionary sixties, visited Sydney on 6 September 1962. He was able to deliver only a onesentence performance: after saluting the public with the words: ‘What a fucking wonderful audience!’ he was promptly arrested on the grounds of obscenity. Richard Neville, a young Australian who would become the guru of London’s counterculture, saw this brief performance and, understanding the importance of Bruce’s position within the generational revolution that was about to start, attempted to organise a new performance at the University of New South Wales. The Australian authorities would not allow Bruce to perform and he was asked to leave the country, never to return.

García has imagined the performance that never took place and, for the Biennale of Sydney 2008, ‘lets’ Lenny Bruce finally speak in Sydney.

COVER FOR FRIEZE FANZINE, 2007 FROM ‘JUST BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT ANYTHING HAS CHANGED’, 2007 PERFORMANCE BY DORA GARCÍA WITH READINGS FROM LENNY BRUCE ROUTINES AT FRIEZE PROJECTS, FRANKFURTER KUNSTVEREIN. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND FRANKFURTER KUNSTVEREIN, FRANKFURT

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