Block Universe launches with a reflective Sophie Jung

Arts

Sophie Jung performing The Bigger Sleep rehush (hush) (2019)
Courtesy Block Universe, Photo: Manuela Barczewski.

Block Universe, Londons festival of performance art celebrated its fifth anniversary and also ushered this years two-week programme on Saturday night. This took place in a vacant building on New Burlington Street with a capacious basement that has been transformed by the artist Sophie Jung into a brilliantly lit reflective chamber lined with a silver mirrored surface and studded with Jungs hybrid sculptural assemblage-objects which appear to be half-submerged. Guests at the launch party were ushered down into these shimmering mirage-like subterranean surroundings where they were then treated to a preview-cum-rehearsal for the UK premiere of The Bigger Sleep—rehush (hush) (2019), that Jung then performed in its entirety later that evening.

Sophie Jung performing The Bigger Sleep rehush (hush) (2019)
Courtesy of Louisa Buck

Jung was resplendent in a flesh-toned nude body suit adorned with twinkling nipples that she has worn for previous performances. Here, she assumed the role of Frau Welt, a world weary, mentally disintegrating grande dame, reclining on a powder pink chaise longue and being served mimed drinks by a solicitous manservant—who is in fact the artists real-life partner. With a characteristically complex, wide-ranging monologue rich in references, word play, asides and tone changes, Jung offered a potent taster of what was later to come in the full version of the piece. At one point she underlined the fragility of her character by breaking into a fragment of the Patsy Cline's 1961 classic Read More – Source

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