Can a first performance be truly relived? [2003-2015]

Can a first performance be truly relived? [2003-2015] 

In 2003, I finally accepted that I was living in Singapore and that my time in Japan was over. I decided then that it was about time to meet artists and to look for a space for an exhibition. Lee Wen invited me to participate to the first FOI. It was the first time I was invited to an art event, I was very happy to be invited but the last thing I wanted to do in my art practice and in my entire life was a live performance! However I thought that if I refused, I may never be invited anymore, so I said yes. For three weeks, I was completely petrified, worried, and tense.EndFragment

My performance was titled after Jean-Pierre Enard’s book 'To make little hoods blush'.

How the performance surprised me! It was an enthralling feeling as if I were a puppet conducted by a mysterious puppeteer.

Since then my relationship with performance has vacillated between love and hate.

For FOI 10, I will try to re-do my first performance art as if it were the first time. Can a first performance be truly relived? [2003-2015]


The Hairy Virgin

The Hairy Virgin is a true story of a girl whose entire body was covered with hair. She was introduced to the King Charles the 4th, Emperor and King.

In his book “Histoires Prodigieuses”, Pierre Boaistuau explains that during her pregnancy, the mother of the Hairy Virgin had seen a statue of Saint John that was covered with animal fur. With the power of her imagination, the mother “transferred” the hair onto the body of her forthcoming baby. The maternal imagination has the power to shape the progeny, it is called the “monstrous imagination”.

“A hairy virgin was shown completely covered with hair like a bear; she was born thus deformed and hideous because her mother had gazed too intensely upon an effigy of St John dressed in animal skins which hung at the foot of her bed when she conceived.

It is certain that these monstrous creatures most often are the consequence of divine judgment, justice, punishment, and curse; horrified by their sin, God allows [women] to produce such abominations because they hurl themselves forward indifferently, like savage beasts that only follow their appetites, with no consideration of age, place, time, and the other laws established by Nature”

Pierre Boaistuau, Histoires prodigieuses, 1560

Black #02

Black #02 is part of a  series of performances using the colour black. The material for the Performance Art is a pair of  Black Stocking and Red Shoes. The initial inspiration of the performance is a memory of Weschler's childhood:

 "In 1975 I was 12 years old, I was still a child and not a teenager yet. It was the seventies, the era of the platform shoes and wide-legged, flared jeans. I wanted to wear stockings with my skirt and I asked my mum to buy me a pair. Fashion for   children at that time was limited and it was difficult to find a pair that  would suit a 12 year old’s skinny body, they were either too big for a child or too small for a woman. My beloved mum bought me the smallest pair she could find. I tried them on and   they were too big for me that I could squeeze in all my body inside except   for the head. When my mum asked how they were fitting me, I remember that I replied that they were great and I walked in front of her with my platform shoes, the torso and two arms inside the stocking

An artist conveys images"



Innocence #05

Innocence #05 is the last piece of a series of performance using only white material. 

Material used for innocence #05 is Honey

"Each time I go back to France I enjoy climbing up to the attic of my parent's house and look for memories from my childhood. One box, my favourite, contains belongings of my late grandma. It is a treasure box for me. It has been a few years now that I have been performing in her undergarment" 

Singapore 2008, Picture by Daniela Guerra

Singapore 2008, Picture by Daniela Guerra

Innocence #03

ICASTICA 2013, First Women Biennale, Arezzo, Italy

Picture by Anita Vozza

Italy 2013 Picture by Anita Vozza

Italy 2013 Picture by Anita Vozza

Innocence

“In 2006, my life was a desert. Everybody seemed busy, active, alive, while I was a prisoner in my own apartment. Nothing was happening in my life, and I felt I was a thing among others in my home. One day I received from a friend a pack of clay. I started to roll small pearls of porcelain from the clay for no reason. They were cute. To escape from my lethargy, every night I rolled pearls made of porcelain, like Penelope weaving her tapestry while waiting for Ulysses, except that in my story there was no Ulysses. All the pearls together became a very long necklace of a few metres; very beautiful, very difficult to move, very heavy.”

This was some years ago and for me it is now impossible to repeat that work. Everything has changed since then: the others and I. Therefore the symbolism of the pearls has evolved as well. This time the necklace will weight 50 kilogrammes to embody my 50 years of life. It was a spontaneous idea that I had, which I expressed the idea with joy; 50 is a number so easily said but 50 kilogrammes of porcelain can be tedious and laborious.

 

Italy 2013 Picture by Anita Vozza

Italy 2013 Picture by Anita Vozza