‘Over the past few years, I've been on a huge healing journey, and have had to really learn how to use and how to live in my body again. It’s been incredibly humbling and amazing, and I'm lucky enough to have met a lot of people around the world who have such knowledge of the body through somatic healing techniques and structures and movement – abstract ways that we can explore ourselves.’
To coincide with her first single release in four years, ahead of her new album, Eusexua, FKA Twigs is drawing on her years spent studying movement practice to present a durational artwork,The Eleven, performed at Sotheby’s in London over a two-week period. It marks a new direction for the auction house, which is presenting an artwork unlike anything else it has shown in its 280-year history, with the free, unticketed event open to all.
Developed by the artist over many months, The Eleven features a cast of movers who perform physical ‘mantras’ in a tangible expression of connectivity and healing. It is named after the 11 aspects FKA Twigs has cited as crucial for wellbeing, with each one renamed by her in distinctive style: intake (intake), keychain (company), crone (relationship to technology), minestate (self-awareness and personal opinion of oneself), shaping (environment), the art of sol (simplicity), looping (artistic creation), opus (self-expression), truth (the truth and spirituality, eusexua body (movement) and primal revelation (nature).
‘I was speaking with the amazing movers yesterday, and I said the feeling of these movements should be – do you remember when you were a child and flowers were at the height of your pet? Do you remember when our eyes were so small that a flower was bigger than your eye, and what it felt like to gaze into it? That's how I want to feel about my body, and that's how I want to feel about the wonders in my life. So I developed the 11 different pillars in my life that I feel that if I don't mind, they can become out of control.’
The performance is accompanied by an amalgamation of techno and experimental electronic music performed by Matteo Chiarenza-Santini, who has also worked with FKA Twigs on her album. As well as the performance itself, FKA Twigs’ process is on display, in her personal sketchbooks and polaroids, as well as 14 large-scale photographs taken by her partner, photographer and film director Jordan Hemingway.
Timed to debut at the same time as her new music, the performance encompasses the guiding force behind her new album. What is ‘Eusexua’? ‘Eusexua is the thing that makes me feel alive. A moment of pure clarity when everything moves out of the way, everything is completely blank, and your mind is elevated,’ says FKA Twigs, adding that it is the moment directly before inspiration, or orgasm. It is a state through which she has lived as she created the 11 pillars. It extended to the way she dressed, choosing for a year to wear only simple, blue clothes created by friend and collaborator Yaz XL, and developed with designer Camille Liu, allowing her to focus inwards.
How did she come up with the name? ‘I was sitting at my kitchen table with my partner, Jordan, and I think it was quite late, and I think we were just gripping onto the word. I think I was trying to describe what I'd experienced in Prague [the energy of the clubs while filming The Crow], and I just kept on saying lots of different variations of the word. And it's funny, because at home, we have lots of pieces of paper with Eusexua spelt in different ways and pronounced in different ways, and it's kind of a jigsaw puzzle of the word. But then when we landed on it, it just felt right. I told somebody at the time that I was working with very closely – I called him up and I said, “I've got it. The album's called Eusexua.” He said to me, “You need to be really careful, because on streaming platforms, it's easier if people know the word, because people can accidentally get to yours and you get more accidental hits that way.” And I was just like, “Wow. Wow. Wow.” And in that moment – I knew that I couldn't work with that person anymore – I was going to have to find the strength and the tenacity of women like Marina [Abramovic] and Madonna and Tracey [Emin] just to keep going and follow through.’
The Eleven by FKA Twigs, from 14 - 26 September 2024. Times: 10am-4.30pm weekdays; 1-4.30pm weekends at Sotheby’s, 34–35 New Bond Street, London W1S 2RP
The Eleven will be livestreamed from Sotheby’s galleries for the entire duration of the exhibition. Viewers can watch via fkatwi.gs or sothebys.com/FKATwigs
