FKA twigs on Her New Performance Piece, a Swirling Ode to Sensuality
Portrait of FKA twigs with The Eleven, 2024. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
Dressed in dark blue and gray, a performer at the center of a stage shakes and bounces with trance-like movements, eyes half-closed, sound reverberating through her body as she rubs her palms and legs. As the music intensifies, she clutches her throat, writhing on the floor, beating at her stomach. One by one, nine other performers join, each dressed in the same gray-blue. The final piece of the puzzle—the 11th performer—is signaled by the arrival of FKA twigs, who conceptualized this brand-new durational work The Eleven, currently on view at Sotheby’s in London through September 26th.
Known for her visionary approach to music, FKA twigs first gained recognition for her debut album LP1 in 2014. Later, on Magdalene she drew on her background in classical dance, exploring pole dancing and martial arts to embody the Madonna/whore dichotomy. Now with her third album Eusexua (expected to drop early 2025), twigs has coined a new term to describe “the pinnacle of human experience—it’s losing hours of the night to dancing, the clarity before a great idea strikes,” which she hopes to explore in the performance work.
Symbolism behind The Eleven
Portrait of FKA twigs with The Eleven, 2024. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
At the opening of the show, twigs arrived in the same blue clothing that links the performers, defiantly staring at the throng of photographers. Despite her small stature, twigs was commanding the room, making it impossible to look away as the other performers writhed behind her. Wordlessly, twigs led audience members into an adjoining room, where she stood before large nude portraits of herself in the various distorted poses used by the performers, taken by partner and collaborator Jordan Hemingway. Accompanying the photographs are intricate sketches documenting twigs’s journey in creating The Eleven, which reference esoteric bodily techniques—from somatic healing to the choreography system Labanotation—in near-obsessive detail.
The performance is named after the 11 aspects of life that are vital for her own well-being, including “Keychain” (which refers to her need for social company) and “Minestate” (to mean self-awareness). In the performance, each performer moves uniquely, embodying the beat through a mix of jerking, rave-inspired gestures and classical, fluid motions, reflecting their individual experiences within the space and the collective. Despite their individuality, the group functions as one organic body. “The 11 movers embody ‘Eusexua.’ It’s that sense of freedom and presence I had when I was younger, and I’m finding my way back to it,” said twigs. “Much of my teenage years were spent in a state of ‘Eusexua’—doing nothing, just being. I’d spend afternoons sitting on the grass, looking at an old oak tree that had been struck by lightning. It felt normal back then. I wanted that feeling again.”
Exploring “Eusexua” through performance
Portrait of FKA twigs and Jordan Hemingway with The Eleven, 2024. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
Reconnection with physicality lies at the heart of twigs’s concept of “Eusexua,” and despite phones and microphones glued to the audience’s hands, it’s impossible not to be drawn into the immediacy of The Eleven’s movements. As the repetition continues and the music crescendos, it seems trivial to take photos. twigs has created something ephemeral and bold, much larger than the small screens we’re increasingly absorbed into. Although “self-exploration” can seem redundant in contemporary art, she appears to approach it with authenticity and genuine curiosity.
Her attention to detail even extends to her wardrobe: “While developing this method, I decided to wear only one shade of blue—a muted, steely Japanese blue. It’s calm, unassuming, and that’s what draws me to it.” While twigs laughed off her lack of interest in collecting contemporary art, she reiterated her desire to do something “dangerous and different” with her platform, taking inspiration from artists who came before her.
FKA twigs’s influences
Portrait of FKA twigs with The Eleven, 2024. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
Portrait of FKA twigs with The Eleven, 2024. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
“I’m inspired by people’s tenacity. One of the 11 pillars is called ‘Looping,’ which encourages all artists to be inspired by their own lives and experiences. I try to find inspiration in myself, but I’m moved by the tenacity of others, especially artists like Marina Abramović, Madonna, and Tracey Emin,” twigs said. Indeed, when she was young, twigs created a song inspired by Emin, named after the Young British Artist’s famous work My Bed (1998). “These women have created something bigger than themselves, persisted despite naysayers, and kept going. The creative industry is tough, and it’s challenging to stick to your vision, [and] risk being the first. You need thick skin, but you also need to remain sensitive and open enough to create art. It’s a dichotomy—being a beautiful, ephemeral spirit on the inside while having thick skin on the outside to project your vision.”
While twigs’s music has always been experimental, The Eleven pushes her exploration of embodiment and presence further. Softly spoken yet serious, twigs explained, “I’ve known for a while that my creative expression goes beyond television performances or music videos. I feel fulfilled creating entire worlds, and I love the challenge of it.”
