Bag Piece I Version by Marlen Wagner
1. August 2025, 13:20, Gropius Bau Berlin/Germany
Yoko Ono said of Bag Piece (1964), which she performed during the Perpetual Fluxfest at the Cinematheque in New York on 27 June 1965: When I did the Bag Piece, we go in the bag, and we’re very different.
And when the curators of the exhibition ‘Music of the Mind’, her major solo exhibition at the Gropius Bau in Berlin, Germany, enable visitors to accept the conceptual and performance artist’s invitation and bring up to date “Bag Piece” in their own performances, I accept this invitation. I wonder if I too will be very different. From what, from whom, how? I am excited to see what it will be like to work with someone else’s concept. And I am curious to see what experiences await me in this sack.
Unlike Yoko Ono, I cannot see the world through the black fabric. It is so densely woven that although light shines through it, I cannot see the room with its exhibits and visitors. But I agree with her – there is now a big difference between the world and me: being in a black sack completely changes my relationship to my surroundings. Nothing about me, not my face, not my body, is visible to the audience. They don’t know what gender I am, what colour my skin is. They follow the movements of a person who moves to sounds, words and images that only he can see and hear.
Within seconds, I forget these thoughts, because this thin layer of fabric isolates me from my surroundings, draws my attention to myself, leaves me alone in the middle of a room full of people. I close my eyes and am completely absorbed in the movements of my body. But in my movements, I am also a prisoner of this sack, which restricts me and limits my range of motion. With every breath, the dusty fabric weighs heavier on my shoulders and arms. But then my movements take on a life of their own, and I notice at the edge of my awareness that I am practising qigong exercises. Their slow flow and accompanying breathing exercises calm my burgeoning panic in the prison of the sack.
I begin to improvise. The dust, the confinement, the smell and the lack of outside view are still there, but I play with them. Just as I play with Yoko Ono’s concept, taking it up and updating it performatively, leading it to a new version: “Black Bag” by Marlen Wagner.
When I finish my performance and leave the white space, I think: Being both the cat in the bag and the buyer of this bag is a difficult position to maintain. As the cat in the bag, I experience the violence that emanates from a piece of black fabric, the temporary imprisonment – but also the freedom of complete anonymity. As the buyer of the sack, I am the one who stands hesitantly at the edge of the white mat and then decides to embark on something unknown, without knowing the risks. And without knowing the contents of the sack, because I am still outside it, not yet the cat inside.
Standing in a black bag on a white surface, moving around in a museum room full of people, has not changed me, but it is an experience I have had.
Marlen Wagner
White Chess Set I Hommage à Yoko Ono I Version by Robert Krokowski