| In the back of the room behind
the balcony, against the black frame of the central window hangs a very
large photograph of the Angel. It is mainly white. Huge grey wings overlay
this body, as if holding her. All over his chest, the blown-up image of
his face can be distinguished through veils and superimpositions. Lips
in the hollow of a shoulder. Her-his sex is a white absence. Over each
of the two black side-windows are suspended large white wings lit in turquoise.
In front of the image, standing inside a circle of earth on the floor,
a peacock; flamboyant in emerald green and ocean blue, the feathers of
its fully spread tail cast a light elliptical shadow over the wall. In
the middle of the room lies a large triangular screen, on which is projected
a slide of a starry sky. In this softly lit space, the Angel seems to be
floating above this triangle piercing the ground.
Within the doorframe in the wall on the right is
back-projected the blown-up slide of blue, cyan and goldish powders - star
dust, chthonic remains... Throughout the whole room is voiced again and
again the primal strength and liberty of the body - in the feminine:
“... She should not exist
She does exist
She is not troubled by the in-between
She embodies pure difference ...”
At the door, you meet a strange host.
S-he stands there, motionless. With his arms slightly
opened, blindfolded, S-he welcomes us. S-he wears a long white satin dress,
with pearls on its cuffs. Black leather armour wraps her chest and arms.
S-he looks proud. His short dark hair accentuates her androgynous face.
Her parted lips of pink porcelain are level with ours. Behind him stands
a weird white wall lit in blue, exhibiting blood hued spots. At his feet
lies a pair of large black wings, with an iron glove and a goldish rose
upon it.
Who is this baroque figure, both brother and sister
of the dreaming young boy? Androgyne offering the Angel her-his double
sex, S-he unifies power and fragility in such a perfect osmosis, that this
can only be the product of a hidden science. S-he might be the Angel who
has fought the iguana in the labyrinth. But now, S-he has dropped her huge
black wings. The iron glove in his right hand is about to fall. Serene,
S-he offers herself, S-he is offered, body of love. But can S-he be taken?
“... She defies all forms and contains all forms
Reality faceless, unciphered, un-named still
She can be taken only by love
She can be taken only by love...”
With her-his blindfolded eyes, S-he observes, beyond
the starry triangle, a mirror against the back wall. It contains the reflection
of a black & white photograph: another raw medical document of two
blindfolded little girls, separated by a long blue vertical neon tube.
The older of the sisters wears sandals, the younger bites the tip of her
forefinger. Both infants have an atrophic penis in the middle of their
pubic triangle.
“... She refuses to be considered as a case for
treatment
She has always resisted any attempt at normalisation
She is whole
She refuses hormone treatment
She does not want to do anything to be like
She is not like
She is proud
She is two thousand years old
She has just been born...”
In this queer “Chamber of Wings”, the Angel, the
Androgyne and the hermaphrodite infants, intense presences, answer each
other from behind their blindfolds.
“... The Angel is the Other’s Ungraspable...”
As you pass over this triangular field, you hesitate
and feel a gentle pang, a soft burning of passion in the heart: there is
a state of dreaming where the body is one with the infinite, and where
the image is a direct impulse of love. The Angel has always been, obviously
- this is what you feel here. Here, where the anger that rises up against
the categories of gender is quenched, and where the helpless anxiety of
being a sexed body is soothed. This black nebula under the belly, this
triangle of stars, this Angel’s sex, what impossible dream of a tremendous
delight does it arouse ?
The last room, a small enclave, is “The Chamber of
Love”. On a video column composed of three monitors, slim hands gently
touch the Angel’s body which passes vertically through each screen. This
gives an impression of cinematography. A white dress is suspended on the
right, and there are three rows of thirteen candles set on a black candelabra
burning on the left. In the middle, hangs a large picture of the Angel,
irradiated with the stardust of a burst nebula. In front of it, a large
square mirror lies in diagonal, on which are displayed pink, gold and silver
roses. “La Lettre d’amour” inscribed on the image is voiced in English:
the nocturnal infinite meets the secret depths of the body:
“... The horizon as during a storm
The horizon as during love-making ...”
The immensity of the Intimate. |
