FKA twigs has unveiled a new performance work at Sotheby’s in tandem with her latest single, “Eusexua”—her first in four years. The singer, songwriter, actor, and artist describes the work as a “physical and artistic quest” for self-healing. Along with her album, she sees it as a gesamtwerk, or total artwork, and it marks the first durational performance in Sotheby’s galleries in the auction house’s 280-year history.
Called, appropriately, The Eleven, the performance is comprised of a rotating group of 11 “movers,” who shake, rub, and spin themselves through 11 ritualized motions that each last 11 minutes. The movements, devised by twigs, are an extension of somatic healing techniques, which focus on connecting the body and emotions and are used to manage stress, anxiety, depression, and trauma.
“I’ve been on a huge healing journey over the last few years,” twigs said, noting that she has been developing The Eleven since 2019. “I’ve really had to learn how to live in my body again. It can be incredibly humbling.”
FKA twigs. Photo: Jordan Hemingway.
The singer has been open about her own trauma. In 2021, she filed a lawsuit against her former partner Shia LaBeouf over alleged abuse four years ago. LaBeouf has denied the claims but apologized for any hurt he caused. The case will come to court in L.A. next month.
Since filing the lawsuit, twigs has become an ambassador for Sistah Space, a U.K. charity supporting women of African and Caribbean heritage affected by domestic and sexual abuse,
At Sotheby’s, the artist performed herself alongside other movers, all of whom hail from different backgrounds, age groups, and walks of life. A classically trained dancer, she said she “loves movement,” but wanted to find ways of moving her body that was “free,” something that felt good but wasn’t exercise or dance—”nothing so formal, but something that still embraces all that we can do with our bodies.”
FKA twigs’s artwork The Eleven, a durational piece conceived by twigs and featuring a rotating group of eleven “movers,” which will include Twigs herself and a changing cast of special guests, at Sotheby’s London. Photo: Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty Images.
Indeed, the physicality of the The Eleven was evident as the movers swung their loose arms back and forth, torsos turning, their limp hands slapping their opposite shoulders in the process. The skin where their hands met their shoulders was flushed and pink by the time the 11 minutes were up, as were their cheeks with the effort of it all.
Each of the 11 movements tackles one of the 11 aspects of life that twigs believes is critical to her own well-being. These range from “Intake,” which relates to what she puts in her body, to “Crone,” or her relationship to technology. “Eusexua Body” is movement unto itself.
“Culture has gone so much into screens, into the algorithm,” twigs said. “Sometimes I don’t know if something is my opinion or just something that my phone served up to me.” In creating these 11 “Twigisms,” as she calls them, it was a way of rooting herself, “rediscovering who I am.”
FKA twigs at Sotheby’s. Photo: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Sotheby’s.
The 11 aspects are as much prompts for mediation as they are movements, and the meditating can be done on its own or while practicing the associated motion, of which there are two levels. For instance, twigs explained, if she has an urge to check her Instagram while she’s at a dinner or at an event, she does a subtle “Croning” movement: rubbing her hands together under the table or behind her back.
The small action allows her to come back into her body rather and be present in her environment rather than disassociating with social media. The “second level” of the motion, as seen in The Eleven, which employs the whole body, can be done at a later time as she reflects on her impulse to engage with social media while in a room full of people.
“It’s a simple system, it’s for everybody,” she said.
While the moves included in The Eleven don’t directly correspond with the choreography for twigs’s new video for “Eusexua”, the title song of her forthcoming third album, the two bodies of work inform one another. The artist coined the term “eusexua” to describe “the pinnacle of human existence,” which is the state of being present in one’s body.
“It’s dancing all night, or having a good idea just when you thought it wasn’t going to happen, or the moment right before an orgasm,” she explained. “It’s a moment of nothingness, of total clarity.”
FKA twigs poses for a portrait in front of her drawings during a preview of her artwork The Eleven. Photo: Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty Images.
The Eleven, performed in Sotheby’s galleries, is accompanied by a live, evolving score by musician and producer Matteo Chiarenza-Santini, who also collaborated with twigs on the “Eusexua” single. The score and the single are inspired by techno and other genres of electronic music—something twigs found herself drawn to in Prague’s nightclubs while she was filming the recently released remake of The Crow.
The performance is also accompanied by sketches from the artist’s notebooks of the different movements and Eusexua concepts, as well as Polaroids and large-format prints of twigs performing the movements, taken by her partner and collaborator, photographer and filmmaker Jordan Hemingway.
FKA twigs and Jordan Hemingway. Photo: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Sotheby’s.
The sketchbook drawings and photos will be for sale independent of Sotheby’s. The dusky blue and neutral, movement-friendly clothes that both twigs and the movers wear, designed by Yaz XL and developed with designer Camille Liu, will also be available for purchase from January 2025.
The Eleven is on view through September 26 at Sotheby’s, New Bond Street, London.