Tino Sehgal was an odd artist to research. Really, it's impossible to get a good impression of his art using resources such as articles, interviews, etc. This is because his work is built around the experience that is created. Beyond that experience, existing in that moment, the art really doesn't exist. It is not like a painting that can at least be reproduced in many aspects, and can be seen at any time. In some ways, it is more like theater which must be experienced at the moment or not at all. However, I think Sehgal would resent this comparison to theater. He dislikes his art being seen as a performance, as much of it is spontaneous, interactive, unexpected, and engaging in ways that actors and their audience cannot be. It breaks through the theatrical conventions of performance.
Having studied dance, Sehgal almost seems to choreograph his art pieces like a dance, but in a way that involves more than just the performers. His dances involve the observer, or another way of saying it is that the observer is not just the observer. The observer actually changes the piece as he or she observes it. The fact that Sehgal attempts to prevent any sort of physical record of his work only adds to the experiential nature of it.
Tino Sehgal's lack of objects in his works forces the viewer to reconsider what art consists of. For example, is a painting art? Or is the experience generated by the painting the art? Would art exist at all without the observer?
We wonder if his art could have become as well known if it had not been for the Net? We have read numerous accounts written by the "interpreters" and the observer of experiencing the works. These become the record. We wonder how long it will be before some curator wants to do a catalogue raisonne--perhaps only over his dead body?
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