
LES AMANTES
Performance: Galerie Parisud/Pascal Vanhoecke, Paris
This project, performed in 2005 and realized as a video in 2006, investigates the ambiguity of the limits between 'public space' and 'private space' and the dynamics of relationship with the other. It raises questions about the blindness of love and the power of senses.
The performance
begins 'by surprise' during the opening of the gallery, without announcement,
melting art action and everyday life. There is no difference between
the audience and the performing couple (Liuba as the woman).
When the game starts to heat up, ambiguous and embarrassing for the
others, the two put on a kind of a cap that isolate them from the looks
of the visitors, thus creating their 'private space'. Protected by not
being seen, they begin to take off their clothes, proceeding with erotic
fluid that brings them together. The heads remain covered.
Embracing and kissing each other, two naked bodies, one female white
and one male black, with heads covered and caps respectively black and
white.
The performance finishes backwards, the performers are putting their
clothes on, taking the caps off, and mingle with the audience in the
gallery.
The exposal of the naked bodies imposes interpretations and suggestions
on love, it's character and relationships. The bodies are intercepting,
the faces are unknown, the senses are active but the thought remains
still
the union could be complete, but one part is never revealed,
evoking it's mystery or impossibility or it's oblivion.
The performance is a relationship between a man and a woman, but it
represents other interactions and relations that reflect the same oppositions
of light and darkness (relations between sexes, races, cultures
).
This project is also an homage to Magritte's painting The Lovers.