‘The choreographer Yvonne Rainer made a radical film work, called ‘Hand Movie’, which I keep coming back to. She shares with us that there is no place without the potential for artistic exploration, no everyday space too small or insignificant to explore our here and now. The nuances that emerge through the tiny movements of her fingers are absolutely breathtaking. In fact, the film is as much about making time explicit as it is about space. All you need is the courage to let your hand dance.’ - Olafur. ⁠ ⁠ Yvonne Rainer, known primarily as a dancer and choreographer, shot her first film ‘Hand Movie’, 1966, in a hospital bed while recovering from surgery and unable to dance. The video is an extended shot of Rainer's hand close-up against a grey background, as she performs the everyday, quotidian movements characteristic of her pioneering minimalist choreography. ⁠ ⁠ ‘Hand Movie’ became part of the series ‘Five Easy Pieces’, which affirms the tenets of Rainer’s ‘No Manifesto’, 1965. Through it, she declared her opposition to the dominant forms of dance of the period and outlined the tenets of her radical new approach:⁠ ⁠ ‘No to spectacle.⁠ No to virtuosity.⁠ No to transformations and magic and make-believe.⁠ No to the glamour and transcendency of the star image.⁠ No to the heroic.⁠ No to the anti-heroic.⁠ No to trash imagery.⁠ No to involvement of performer or spectator.⁠ No to style.⁠ No to camp.⁠ No to seduction of spectator by the wiles of the performer.⁠ No to eccentricity.⁠ No to moving or being moved.’⁠ ⁠ Video: Excerpt of 'Hand Movie’, 1966, @juxtapozmag ⁠ ⁠ Source: MoMA (@themuseumofmodernart). ⁠