Alex Dermatis is an interdisciplinary performance artist, living and working in Berlin.
Since October 2016, he has held a weekly residency at Kit Kat Club. Throughout the nights of each Saturday since, he has come to develop a new practice of work; expanded from his research upon sexuality, intimacy, bdsm, bodywork, tantra and aerial acrobatics.
His stage work is usually framed within long durational performative installations, mainly made with bodies and ropes. He frequently works with models who, up to that moment, are total strangers to him. The physical language of negotiation he has developed, is his greatest treasure in this journey of researching sexuality and bdsm through performance. And, although often somewhat hidden within the war-zone environment of the club, this language is always present and on display for the careful audience to observe; And it is what dictates each piece, its content, its duration and its extreme.
Before he got to be known as the bondage artist of Kitkat, Dermatis spent 14 years in London. He studied History of Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, (2002-2007) with a dissertation on Performance Studies and Performativity. He then worked for artists and companies that focused on site responsive performance; from immersive experimental theatre, to late night performance events, to museum & gallery based performance art.
Notably, he has worked for the Shunt collective (Shunt Lounge 2008-2010), Tino Seghal (Tate Modern 2012 and Athens Roman Agora 2014) and Oreet Ashery (Artangel's Party for Freedom 2013).
In parallel with his employment in large scale projects, in 2009 he began developing his own performance practice, often involving aerial acrobatics and ropes. In 2011, He initiated the Guerrilla Rigging series; an ongoing site-specific circus project in the form of public interventions, which is gradually archived and scheduled to be published on a hard copy.
In 2015, He moved to Berlin with a plan to research the discipline of sexuality broadly, and incorporate it into his performance practice. He met Felix Ruckert and it was he who introduced him to rope bondage.
Alex Dermatis was born and grew up in Athens, Greece.
