III. Assuming a Pose
At the heart of this programme is cinema’s preoccupation with moments where reality meets fiction. For this, fashion’s acts of posing, dressing up, staging and masking offer ideal material. In a number of languages the word pose connotes not only a position or posture of the body but also artificiality and falsity in one’s conduct, in other words, pretence. By imitating cultural norms, models who pose become oddly reassuring fabrications. The collective observer moulds them as if they were inanimate objects. Similarly in this programme, the rich source of fascination is the confusion between the artificial body of a shop dummy and the real one of a poser who is shown in the moving image as momentarily immobilised and thus conspicuously exposed.
Screening will be followed by fashion photographer Jean-François Carly and fashion designer Shelley Fox in conversation with Penny Martin, Editor-in-Chief of SHOWstudio.
→ Read Christel Tsilibaris’ essay ‘Assuming a Pose’.
→ Read David Bate’s essay ‘Patricia & Marie-France Martin’s C’est comme être’.
→ Read Sam Serafy’s essay ‘Four Beautiful Pairs of Legs’.
→ Read Penny Martin’s essay ‘Shelley Fox 14 and I Feel’.
Volume
Sunday 21 May, 17:00 | The Horse Hospital In Jean Pierre Khazem's video Volume (2000) the viewer is confronted with the image of a voluptuous woman positioned naked in front of the camera. Although the model's nudity suggests a corporeal intimacy and presupposes a revelation of her identity, in the case of Khazem's model, her identity is concealed by the wax mask she wears on her face.
Four Beautiful Pairs
Sunday 21 May, 17:00 | The Horse Hospital Four Beautiful Pairs (1904) was produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co., later just the Biograph Company, which is chiefly remembered today for being the studio where motion picture pioneer D. W. Griffith invented much of the grammar of narrative cinema. Essentially a single-sight gag, typical of the company's early output, the short comedy exploits to full advantage the limitations of the motion picture medium of the period.
How Mannequins are Made
Sunday 21 May, 17:00 | The Horse Hospital Text
Mannequins à Vendre
Sunday 21 May, 17:00 | The Horse Hospital Text
School for Mannequins
Sunday 21 May, 17:00 | The Horse Hospital Text
Smooth with the Rough
Sunday 21 May, 17:00 | The Horse Hospital Text
I Feel
Sunday 21 May, 17:00 | The Horse Hospital Images of split selves are exposed in Jean-François Carly's video I Feel (2005). Two frames are juxtaposed; the one on the left shows a young man wearing his own clothes, the one on the right simultaneously shows him endorsing clothes from the collection of the Belgian designer Raf Simons. The male models alternate but the structure remains.
It’s Like Being (C’est comme etre)
Sunday 21 May, 17:00 | The Horse Hospital This hypnotic video has two parts. The first has two women preparing themselves in a mirrored parlour, where they rub cream on their faces and upper bodies. With delicate relish they are absorbed by their self-images, checking their appearance in the mirrors, caressing their mirrored selves. The two women are identical twins. Second scene of the video is set in a chandelier room with sombre red flock wallpaper, the two figures elegantly dance in their masks mimicking each other's activities, but in doing so, quickly morph into different identities, sometimes non-human.
Photo Shooting
Sunday 21 May, 17:00 | The Horse Hospital n her short video piece Photo-Shoot (2001), the artist Jen Wu assumes the role of a model and poses for a photographer in a room that does not necessarily resemble a photo-studio. The viewer looks at this photo session through a camera placed in the corner of the room. The absence of the sound, the grayish color of the image and the obstructed visibility of the action material, light and people, makes the act of seeing appear to be facilitated through a surveillance camera. The viewer instantly becomes a form of authority, an Orwellian big brother.
Shelley Fox 14
Sunday 21 May, 17:00 | The Horse Hospital A short film produced in collaboration with the London-based fashion and art broadcasting company SHOWstudio to showcase British designer Shelly Fox's Spring/Summer '05 womenswear collection. Shelley Fox 14 shows how most contemporary fashion portraits are achieved through projection onto the models' bodies more than by directing them to express something personal about them.
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