Katrina Palmer and Bo Ningen

Katrina Palmer and Bo Ningen in an inspiring one-off performance.

Warwick Arts Centre. Coventry. Wednesday 8 March.

Preview

Not to be missed is this never-to-be-repeated collaboration between award-winning British artist Katrina Palmer and the stunning iconic Japanese rock act Bo Ningen.

This FREE unique one-off collaboration will see members of the band respond directly to Katrina's exhibition, What's Already Going On. For a never-to-be-repeated site-specific immersive performance, Taigen Kawabe (bass/vocals), Yuki Tsujii (guitar), and Monchan Monna (drums), will perform both solo and together, in-person, with Kohhei Matsuda (guitar/keyboards) - who is presently in Japan - joining remotely.

Recently shortlisted for the prestigious Freelands Award 2022, What's Already Going On is Katrina's largest commission to date, filling Warwick Arts Centre’s Mead Gallery. Moving away from text-based projects, the exhibition sees the acclaimed artist embrace sculpture, performance, drawings and moving image.

Hailing from Japan, but coming together in London, Bo Ningen have been pushing creative boundaries since the '00s. Renowned for their intense and powerful live performances, the quartet's list of collaborators and fans reads like an expansive who’s who of contemporary culture, and includes projects with such influential figures as fashion designer Alexander McQueen, Hedi Slimane (Yves Saint Laurent), photographer Juergen Teller, and American multi-disciplinary artist Doug Aitken. They've also created live film scores, Dada-inspired sonic poems, performed at the Venice Biennale, and played countless festivals, including Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds, Coachella and Yoko Ono’s Meltdown Festival.

Katrina Palmer said: "Bo Ningen make music that accommodates sudden shifts in direction and emotion, from the melodic to the dissonant. There's an effortlessness about these transitions in their work that says something about their ability to react intuitively to each other and to the contexts they find themselves in. Their agile response to my show reveals an entirely new dimension to the space, which is incredibly exciting."

Bo Ningen said: "We're delighted to be invited to perform for Katrina Palmer's exhibition What's Already Going On. Bo Ningen have always pursued to break the norm of being a rock band in the context of playing 'rock' music. This contradicting sense has always pushed us forward to explore more sounds themselves, as well as music - sounds you're familiar with, sounds you've never heard of, but feel like you've heard before.

"This will be a great opportunity for us too to see if we can connect with the fragments of sounds we like, we're not comfortable with, or could be sounds we've forgotten – even the silence!

"We're very positive that this performance with Katrina's work will be something unique, something we've never experienced, something arising outside our consciousness and discipline of music, and very inspiring."

Katrina Palmer x Bo Ningen is part of Warwick Art Gallery's free Gallery Late event (6.30pm-10pm), which includes late access to What's Already Going On and Readings from Arrhythmia (7pm) – a series of special readings featuring artists/authors Andrew E. Colarusso, Kamwangi Njue, Roy Claire Potter and Alice Walker. Bo Ningen will perform twice, firstly a site-specific set (from 8.15pm), then a closing collective set (from 9.15pm). Admission free – no booking required.

What's Already Going On continues at the gallery until Sunday 12 March 2023.