LONDON, UK.- ICA London presents Tino Sehgal, through March 3, 2005. This is the first of three solo exhibitions taking place at the ICA over a three-year period between 2005-07 by acclaimed London born artist Tino Sehgal.

In 2005 the exhibition will consist of two works that will introduce Sehgal’s unique artistic practice. In the Lower Gallery, Sehgal will present his earliest piece 'Instead of allowing some thing to rise up to your face dancing bruce and dan and other things' (2000) which makes reference to the video-work of the artists Dan Graham and Bruce Nauman. In the Upper Galleries, audiences will encounter Sehgal’s most recent and complex installation 'This objective of that object' (2004).

Coming from a background in choreography and political economy, which both play a fundamental role in his work, Sehgal does not produce tangible objects and is not interested in leaving any form of material trace. Sehgal views visual art as being completely interrelated with society and functioning along identical economic conditions, namely the production and exchange of goods and commodities. He is interested in challenging these conditions by creating works that appear as the transformation of acts and the production of meaning through a transitory situation, rather than as a transformation of solid materials. He does so by fulfiling the conventions of a visual artwork without physically producing anything, assembling meaning through directing people rather than creating objects.

Sehgal effectively designs situations that take the form of fleeting gestures based on movement and the spoken word with one or several people acting out a set of instructions over the duration of an exhibition. Over his career, Sehgal has worked with a variety of ‘interpreters’ including museum guards, singers, children and the owners of his galleries, to create highly provisional pieces of art that challenge the traditional museological context.

Through his work Sehgal explores social processes, conventions and the allocation of roles, thus questioning the coordinates that define the system of art: idea, visualization, originality, producer, viewer, owner, market value, etc. The human voice, language, movement and interaction are the artistic materials with which Sehgal stakes out a radical position within the tradition of sculpture and installation. Divested of all objectivity and materiality, his ephemeral poetic interventions leave an enduring afterglow in our minds.

Tino Sehgal was born in London in 1976. His recent solo exhibitions include the Museé des Beaux Arts, Nantes (2004) and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2004). In addition he has participated in a number of group exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (2003) and Manifesta 4, Frankfurt (2002). The Berlin-based, British artist has been invited to participate in the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2005.