After having taken a long puff from
her black lipstick stained slim 120 cigarette, she states: ‘I consider that this number is successful
when people stop seeing it as erotic! Not that erotic is a problem of course,
but here it’s merely a starting point for an extended process: once one has
exhausted his scopic drive - and how to do that better than by offering exposed
genitals in an uninhibited context? - and went over the whole cycle of shame,
desire and frustration, the opportunity to dive into this primal contemplation
is a genuine liberation...’
She adds in a laugh: ‘you’d be surprised actually of how many
people blamed me for being eventually un-erotic, spoiling the common
expectations! But you know, if all you want is entertainment, you shouldn’t
come to the Lumpenkabarett, we provide fun, but also much more...’
‘Let’s consider this stage work as just another form of OUPERPO - for Ouvroir
de Performance Potentiel, after OULIPO - with bondage as a self-reflective
tongue-in-cheek evocation of artistic constraint’ - she emphasizes her speech by miming tying
herself up - ‘and the whole cabaret and
erotic show thing as hindrances that force both the artist and the audience to
struggle through form to reach the essence of performing art. That can be that,
or a rock concert, a roller derby match, a TV show or even a riot!’
‘And when you’ve done that, when you’re bound and exposed to a fascinated
crowd, you’re a hero, you’re a goddess, you’re Prometheus, you’re Jesus, you
unveil and offer your true being -
a being reduced to its mere being - to whomever is willing or able to share
such a gift!’ She
accompanies this somehow grandiloquent utterance with her lips carefully
painted in satin black forming a cunning smile that makes it impossible to
decide if she’s serious or not...
When not animated by talking or smiling,
her black and white face becomes a blank image, making her silences more profound
- just like her bound naked body emptied and darkened the space around her...
Excerpt from a text + graphic work, to be published in Akademie SChloss Solitude Yearbook 2011.
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