Tino Sehgal

Still image of the participants in the installation/performance of “This Progress” at the Guggenheim. 2009

Note on “This Progress”

“‘Interpreters’ are on separate levels of the Guggenheim. When you enter there is a child that will ask you ‘What is progress?’ And from there you meet a teenager, a middle-aged person, and then a senior citizen. The answer you give to the child dictates the on-going conversation that you will then have with the rest of the interpreters. Someone directly addressing you, ‘What do you think? What matters to you?” goes away from the ‘codes of painting’ and the existence of the museum where most of the Art world exists socially segregated. ‘What I think, what I do matters in society’ is the sort-of impression I want to create within the walls of an Art museum (Guggenheim). The reason the first person the audience engages is a child who asks ‘What is Progress’ is because that the last 200 years in Western Society, it has been clear known what “progress” is. (We go around, transform the earth, extract natural resources with our man-power, generate material things, create happiness, repeat). I think in the 21st century, that model isn’t sustainable, and now immaterial needs are becoming more important. The focus is now a return to inter-personal transformation instead of transforming the world.”