"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."
To this famous line by William Shakespeare 1We might be tempted to add an existential question that many philosophers and artists have grappled with: who are we beyond the role we assume and beyond our appearance? What part of truth does illusion contain? Who hides behind the mask?
A question whose complexity is revealed in the etymology of the word "person", person, which means "mask" in Latin, and will have effected the strange assimilation of the accessory (the mask) to its wearer (knowing that actors in ancient theater performed masked). A disturbing derivation illustrated by the inaugural exhibition of the new space of the Galerie des Filles du Calvaire whose title, explicitly referencing this double-meaning etymology, inevitably evokes Ingmar Bergman's eponymous film and its exploration of burial and doubling.
It also seems, strangely enough, to illustrate the observation made by Victor Hugo around 1830. 2 : “The theatre is not the land of reality: there are cardboard trees, canvas palaces, a sky of rags, glass diamonds, tinsel gold […]. It is the land of truth: there are human hearts backstage, […] human hearts on stage.”
We sense them, we feel them beating here, these human hearts beneath the masks. Like the sequined costumes of masquerades photographed by Charles Fréger and the sequined embroideries of Frances Goodman, too flashy not to reveal or hint at the hidden face of reality… Like the truncated PVC mask of the Solid Wood Kenny Dunkan's dislocated. Or some metamorphoses by Jérémie Cosimi, who uses a brush to transform bodies wrapped in "second skin" suits into ghostly statues.
Equally virtuosic is Katinka Lampe's brushstroke, which manages to convey the feeling of skin concealed beneath lace veils or hair, as well as Thomas Lévy-Lasne's pencil stroke, which brings to life the faces seen through a webcam (Cyrielle Distance Learning(charcoal on paper, 2022).
Even more disturbing is Juul Kraijer's video, which borrows its title from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, Wenn du der Träumer bist, bin ich dein Traum ("When you are the dreamer, I am your dream"): with a timeless Botticellian beauty, the impassive face of a young redhead standing out against a black background acts as a mask while the eyes and mouth come to life, opening and closing to swallow and spit out bumblebees in a loop… A mise en abyme of dream and trompe-l'oeil pushing the contemporary portrait to its ultimate limits until it becomes an "intimate exploration of life".
- As you would like, 1599
- Pile of Stones III
PERSONA, inaugural exhibition – Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire
Until 1er April
21, rue Chapon, Paris 3e (new space)
France
Stéphanie Dulout