"Mmm-mmm!"
instalation at the exhibition "MOLT! Speculative identities" in Berlin
take-away packages of hair
-"Hair is kind of antenna, like air-roots of trees" M.Abramović
A "primitive" belief maintains that owning a lock of hair from anothers head gives one power over that individual, in the same manner that owning an image of an individual grants the owner such powers.
Historically, giving a lock of ones hair to someone has been considered a sign of devotion, especially before an impending separation.-
first sketches for the piece
A frame within frame - a picture on the wall is the first “Androgynous” photo montage made in 2011. and never exhibited.
It was a sort of a hommage to the work of Marina Abramovic and Frank Uwe Laysiepen (Ulay).
It is also a self-portrait - I am sitting with my hair connected to my other self, the male half with a distinct Adam's apple, like Ulays.
Most of my work deals with a need to connect, so Abramovic-Ulay were a very interesting phenomena for me at the time, before MoMa and many other re-performances happened later on.
From the very beginning of their symbiotic relationship and cooperation, they identified themselves as one androgynous being, a unity that contains both male and female elements. They represented the two energies of opposite sexes who are attempting to merge into one, in a state of complete harmony.
But, after ten years of living and working together, they split up with their last performance “The Great Wall Walk”. Marina then stated: “In the end, no matter what you do, you are really alone.”
Such an ending concerned me- it was an evidence of the unsustainability of intensity, and they were not in a position where they could compromise-because compromises in their private lives meant compromises in their art.
So I decided not to seek the Other anymore, and getting in touch with my "male" or "stronger" side was, therefore, beginning of the process of "healing” and restoring the initial One.
A photo-montage “Mmm-mmm!”is much less serious, and it questions every- thing I thought I had figured out. “Androgynous” is hanged on a wall for being a piece of dead art- as well as “Mmm-mmm!” which is framed and exhibited together with little take-away packages of my own hair, offered to the visitors.
Getting in touch with your feminine or masculine side quite possibly is “esoteric cliché of modern psychology”, a black-and-white division of prejudice that harms the understanding of the complexity of the human psyche (and oneself).
Art can avoid the defendant's bench with a touch of humor and with riddles, which I will leave for the viewer to discover.
It was a sort of a hommage to the work of Marina Abramovic and Frank Uwe Laysiepen (Ulay).
It is also a self-portrait - I am sitting with my hair connected to my other self, the male half with a distinct Adam's apple, like Ulays.
Most of my work deals with a need to connect, so Abramovic-Ulay were a very interesting phenomena for me at the time, before MoMa and many other re-performances happened later on.
From the very beginning of their symbiotic relationship and cooperation, they identified themselves as one androgynous being, a unity that contains both male and female elements. They represented the two energies of opposite sexes who are attempting to merge into one, in a state of complete harmony.
But, after ten years of living and working together, they split up with their last performance “The Great Wall Walk”. Marina then stated: “In the end, no matter what you do, you are really alone.”
Such an ending concerned me- it was an evidence of the unsustainability of intensity, and they were not in a position where they could compromise-because compromises in their private lives meant compromises in their art.
So I decided not to seek the Other anymore, and getting in touch with my "male" or "stronger" side was, therefore, beginning of the process of "healing” and restoring the initial One.
A photo-montage “Mmm-mmm!”is much less serious, and it questions every- thing I thought I had figured out. “Androgynous” is hanged on a wall for being a piece of dead art- as well as “Mmm-mmm!” which is framed and exhibited together with little take-away packages of my own hair, offered to the visitors.
Getting in touch with your feminine or masculine side quite possibly is “esoteric cliché of modern psychology”, a black-and-white division of prejudice that harms the understanding of the complexity of the human psyche (and oneself).
Art can avoid the defendant's bench with a touch of humor and with riddles, which I will leave for the viewer to discover.
workshop brake
night before the opening
an intervention made by the audience at the opening of the exhibition
you can hear the interview here: https://soundcloud.com/gtberlin/zona-dynamic
also
Check out the video from the exhibition: https://vimeo.com/82139695
