MEDIATHEK

Paroxysm of Semblance While delving into Renaissance painting for the show D’après J.C., I realized how the rediscovery back then of ancient art and texts ended up forging our canons of female beauty. Renaissance painters depicted the female body as unreal and anti-natural, and this image, depending on the context, became the fleshly wrapping of the Virgin or Mary Magdalene, and subsequently served as a paradigm for all of Western Art. Paradoxically, from Quattrocento virgins right down to 21st century top models, this idealization of female beauty has remained virtually unchanged. It continues to be the fantasy-projection of male desire, which spawns contradictory images that entrap even those who resist. Women are expected to define themselves by complying to an aesthetic code that is both assigned and self-imposed. I wanted to explore our ambiguous relationship with these images, and to question the representation of women through different eras and mediums. In Ciao Bella, five performers embody these stereotypes to an extreme, and ultimately subvert them from within. With a great deal of humor, they manipulate clichés and concoct a creature so artificial and made-up that it verges on the monstrous, and yet also manages to break away from all references and, perhaps, to find freedom in this paroxysm of semblance. Herman Diephuis [Quelle: http://www.hermandiephuis.com/hermandiephuis.com/Ciao_bella.html] isrr