At the beginning of 2026, the MAM & UP-ON Live Art Documentation Center was officially established in Shanghai. The Center is dedicated to collecting, researching, and presenting live art documentation, while advancing creative practice and cross-disciplinary exchange.
Following the June launch of Gouchen, a project focused on the organization and presentation of archival materials, the MAM & UP-ON International Live Art Season—another initiative dedicated to advancing academic exchange and creative practice—will open at the end of September. Through lectures, workshops, and live creation, the season will offer the public a rich and professionally grounded program of art education.
Beginning in the 1970s, performance art was incorporated into the curricula of some universities and art schools in North America, and later developed in Europe. Since the 1990s, academic teaching of performance art has emerged in a number of countries across Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Institutions such as the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Berlin University of the Arts, Braunschweig University of Art, the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Musashino Art University, and the Academy of Fine Arts of Rome have each developed distinctive approaches to performance art education. One important teaching format has been to invite artists to lead short-term workshops on campus.
During this edition of the MAM & UP-ON International Live Art Season, we are pleased to invite German artist Marcel Sparmann and American artist Tony Orrico to lead a workshop, offering participants an intensive opportunity for learning and practice.
Marcel Sparmannis a movement-based artist working across performance, dance, and installation. His artistic practice moves—at varying points of emphasis—between the performing and visual arts. His approach to communication, relationships, and exchange is primarily grounded in imagery and action. Marcel is embedded in diverse social, personal, and self-narratives, as well as in the contexts that shape them, and seeks to become increasingly aware of these entanglements. For years, he has been driven by the desire to grasp such narratives in their pre-linguistic complexity, to acknowledge them, and to transform them into poetic and fragmentary forms of expression.He is particularly drawn to ideas of fluid mutation and deconstruction, recognising that we are constantly surrounded by visual languages, with their shifting meanings, interpretations, and codes. Web：marcelsparmann.com
“A Single Word Can Engulf You, If It Comes from the Ocean” Venice International Performance Art Week 2020, Co-Creation Live Factory, Palazzo Mora, Venice [IT] Courtesy of the artist, Photo By Jacques Martens
“From the unspoken between feet and head – in conversation with Alfredo Jaar” V. Bienale de Performances Deformes, Mueo de la Memoria Santiago de Chile [CL], 2014. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Dominique Wainstein
Workshop Overview
Absence is a place—a house, a square, the entire world—and it is also where we come from. It is equally the dwelling place of absent fathers, departed friends, and the deceased, a lineage that stretches across generations. One day, we too will return there. Until then, their echoes—and the silence marked by their traces—will continue to accumulate within us. Recognizing these echoes seems essential, while attempting to interpret them is an exploration fraught with the unknown. Through performative practices, poetic inquiry, and experiential forms, we will open up a space of resonance where these echoes and the stories they evoke can be tested, clarified, and imbued with new flexibility and possibilities. The course will introduce a variety of creative and artistic methods for tracing the threads of personal life experiences, conducting aesthetic research, and employing evocative and action-oriented imagery. This course is suitable for theater professionals, performance artists, trainers, consultants, and educators.
Specific content includes:
· Testing and practicing various forms of performance art methods · Critically reflecting on participatory exercises and experiments
· Transforming everyday behaviors into performance art imagery
· Creating and exploring distilled moments and situations
· Questioning and reexamining our habitual ways of watching, observing, and perceiving
· Expanding personal artistic expression and reflective vocabulary
· Engaging in creative practices that integrate specific sites, specific times, and personal life experiences
Time: September 24, 2026 (Thursday), 10:00 AM – 17:00 PM (including lunch break)
Venue: 5th Floor, Modern Art Museum Shanghai (MAM)
Instructor: Marcel Sparmann (Germany)
Participants: Limited to 20.
Application materials: A detailed personal biography, including a phone number and other contact information.
Fee: ￥200 yuan / person
Application deadline: September 15, 2026. Selected participants will be notified by September 18.
Application email: [email protected]
Email subject: “Absence Is (Y)our House: Marcel Sparmann Performance Art Workshop” + Your Name
Participant Requirements：
1. Please wear comfortable, relaxed clothing that allows for free movement during the workshop.
2. Each participant is asked to prepare the following materials:
◎ 2 breakable porcelain cups (any size or color)
◎ A stack of white A4 paper
◎ A black marker pen / permanent marker
◎ Several rolls of different types of strong adhesive tape (e.g., fabric tape / gaffer tape)
◎ A large piece of fabric (e.g., a bedsheet)
◎ Scissors
Optional:
◎ A large roll of wrapping paper
◎ 1–2 rolls of sturdy rope / cord
◎ One wooden stick/pole per person, approximately 1.2 meters long
◎ One brick per person (if possible)
3. Participants are welcome to bring a few objects that hold personal significance to them or that accompany them in their daily lives. These objects may include:
◎Things that are older than you and will “outlive” you—that is, they will continue to exist after you are gone;
◎ Things that are younger than you and will “die” or disappear before you do.
Born 1979 in Chicago, Illinois; lives and works in Iowa City, Iowa. University of Iowa, MFA Choreography; Illinois State University, BS Dance Theater. Tony Orrico works at the intersection of performance, drawing, and embodied systems. Their practice investigates mental and physical endurance, somatics, biogeometrics, and emergent form through improvisation and durational process.
Orrico has performed and exhibited internationally across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Their visual work is held in major institutional and private permanent collections, including the National Academy of Sciences (Washington, DC), the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico), and Muzeum Susch (Switzerland).
They have presented work at institutions including the CCCB, Centre Pompidou-Metz, the New Museum, and PopTech 2011: The World Rebalancing. In 2010, Orrico was selected to reperform the work of Marina Abramović during her retrospective at Museum of Modern Art. A former member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company and Shen Wei Dance Arts, Orrico has performed at venues including the Sydney Opera House, Teatro La Fenice, the New York State Theater, and the Théâtre du Palais-Royal. In 2011, Orrico served as visual designer for CANYON by John Jasperse, which premiered in New York City as part of the Next Wave Festival at Brooklyn Academy of Music and continued to tour.
Orrico is currently Assistant Professor of Sculpture & Intermedia and Dance at the University of Iowa. Their work was featured in Performance Drawing: New Practices Since 1945 (Bloomsbury, 2020), a collection examining the relationship between drawing and performance, and will appear in the forthcoming The Theater of Drawing published by Performance Art Journal/MIT Press.
Tony Orrico,Penwald: 4: unison symmetry standing. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Michael Hart
Tony Orrico, Penwald: 2: 8 circles: 8 gestures. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Michael Hart
Workshop Overview
Participants will learn Orrico’s embodied technique that informs the wall-drawing Penwald: 4: unison symmetry standing (2010–). Sensation serves as the catalyst for mark-making.
Through principles of co-planning, being “with” stimuli, and simulating suspension through mirroring and weight leverage, participants will explore the body as a motor for drawing. Working bilaterally at the wall, they will cultivate attention to friction, control, efficiency, and endurance.
Time: September 24, 2026 (Thursday), 10:00 AM – 17:00 PM (including lunch break)
Venue: 5th Floor, Modern Art Museum Shanghai (MAM)
Instructor: Tony Orrico (USA)
Participants: Limited to 20.
Application materials: A detailed personal biography, including a phone number and other contact information.
Fee: ￥200 yuan / person
Application deadline: September 15, 2026. Selected participants will be notified by September 18.
Application email: [email protected]
Email subject: “Absence Is (Y)our House: Marcel Sparmann Performance Art Workshop” + Your Name
Participant Requirements
1. Please be prepared to meet physical limits in a safe environment.
2. Please prepare the following materials:
◎ Four 2B woodless graphite pencils
◎One sheet of paper close to body size (white photodrop paper is recommended; approximately 140 × 240 cm is ideal; recommended paper weight: 120–150 gsm)
◎ One utility knife for sharpening the pencils
Curatorial Organization
The MAM & UP-ON Live Art Documentation Center was jointly established in Shanghai in 2026 by Modern Art Museum Shanghai and the UP-ON Performance Art Archive. It is a professional art platform dedicated to mapping the ecology of live art, archival documentation, academic research, and creative exchange.
Centered on archive-building and curatorial practice, the Center systematically organizes and activates historical materials on live art, establishes coherent contexts for viewing and research, and addresses gaps in the field. Through exhibitions and public programs, it also builds an international network for dialogue and exchange in live art.
Organizer
Formerly a coal bunker located at the old Shanghai Coal Transport Wharf, Modern Art Museum Shanghai (MAM) has been transformed into an art “warehouse” while preserving the original architecture and landscape.
MAM focuses on “diversity,” “openness,” “exchange,” and “learning.” It maintains an open international perspective and integrates cross-disciplinary approaches, introducing classic art from both the East and the West, showcasing modern design and aesthetics, and exploring the future of art inspired by new technologies and diverse media. The museum continues to pay close attention to contemporary art with an emphasis on Asia, using innovative curatorial concepts and techniques to transform the museum into a platform for public art and cultural experiences. Visitors can gain inspiration, acquire new knowledge, and enrich their aesthetic lives.
Our philosophy: “Art’s Happening.” MAM is committed to maintaining high artistic standards, promoting public education, balancing international and local elements, and fostering the production of art and culture. Through the integration of art, music, performance, and cuisine, MAM offers a continuous, year-round site of artistic events for audiences from diverse backgrounds.
Title Sponsor
Fashion in a Conscious Future Foundation (FICFF) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) and an innovation and cultural-impact institution guided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is committed to advancing sustainable development through fashion, culture, education, and global collaboration.
FICFF is committed to transforming fashion and culture into positive forces for global sustainable development. Through innovative practices across fashion, lifestyle, environmental protection, education, and international cooperation, the Foundation promotes the communication and implementation of sustainability principles and contributes to a greener, fairer, and more inclusive future.
The sustainable development initiative submitted by FICFF has been officially published on the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) Partnerships for SDGs Platform under project No. #SDGAction60806.
Supporting Organization
Pro Helvetia Shanghai, the Swiss Arts Council
