'' Romantic marriage | A history of performance art on the Riviera from 1951 until now

Romantic marriage

Series: 
Cycle de la mariée
Creator: 
Elisabeth Morcellet
Performer: 
Elisabeth Morcellet
Occurence: 
Starting date: 
03 08 2002
25 minutes
Topology: 
experimental space/artist's studio/at home
Organization: 
Atelier 49
Background: 
During the opening of the group exhibit 3ème salon ménager et galant de l’homme d’intérieur for the presentation and signing of the guidebook by the author Richard Belfer.
Producer: 
Max Horde
Richard Belfer
Adress: 
49 rue Clément Bel
Vallauris
France

copie vidéo trace d'action couleur et sonore (original de Véronique Champollion)

Synopsis / Description: 
copie vidéo trace d'action couleur et sonore
Performances: 
Romantic marriage

vidéo photo exposition avec emission « Nulle part ailleurs » sur Canal +

Synopsis / Description: 
vidéo photo exposition avec emission « Nulle part ailleurs » sur Canal +
Performances: 
Romantic marriage
Objets: 

une robe de mariée blanche, beaucoup utilisée, année 60, taille haute avec bustier dentelle, et traîne en tulle et dentelle, déjà utilisée pour de nombreuses performances et tournage, sur le thème de la mariée. Taille 38.

Technique description référence: 
une robe de mariée blanche, beaucoup utilisée, année 60, taille haute avec bustier dentelle, et traîne en tulle et dentelle, déjà utilisée pour de nombreuses performances et tournage, sur le thème de la mariée. Taille 38.

chaussons chaussures blanches en tissus

Technique description référence: 
chaussons chaussures blanches en tissus

sac filet en coton blanc

Technique description référence: 
sac filet en coton blanc
Documents: 

CARTON INVITATION : Deux exemplaires originaux, fond bleu écriture blanche, exposition du 22 février au 22 Mars. Performance mentionnée le vendredi 8 Mars à 18h30

Type: 
Imprimé
Technique description référence: 
CARTON INVITATION : Deux exemplaires originaux, fond bleu écriture blanche, exposition du 22 février au 22 Mars. Performance mentionnée le vendredi 8 Mars à 18h30
MORCEL

COURRIER (26.02.02) présentation projet de Richard Belfer : 2 pages avec paragraphes :<br /> « Un salon pour le 8 Mars… », « ....et un guide pour que l’homme progresse toute l’année », « Le guide » , « Le Salon » « Les exposants »

Type: 
Imprimé
Technique description référence: 
COURRIER (26.02.02) présentation projet de Richard Belfer : 2 pages avec paragraphes :<br /> « Un salon pour le 8 Mars… », « ....et un guide pour que l’homme progresse toute l’année », « Le guide » , « Le Salon » « Les exposants »
MORCEL

PROJET expo des pièces photographiques pour « Le célibataire mis à nu par la mariée même » en deux pages pré remplie pour dépôt d’œuvre, datée du 3 mai 2001 et signée

Type: 
Imprimé
Technique description référence: 
PROJET expo des pièces photographiques pour « Le célibataire mis à nu par la mariée même » en deux pages pré remplie pour dépôt d’œuvre, datée du 3 mai 2001 et signée
MORCEL

Entrefilet d’annonce uniquement pour l’exposition dans NICE MATIN, Culture, « Les expositions » coupure de presse originale. (17 Mars 2002)

Type: 
Presse
Technique description référence: 
Entrefilet d’annonce uniquement pour l’exposition dans NICE MATIN, Culture, « Les expositions » coupure de presse originale. (17 Mars 2002)
MORCEL

ARTICLE SORTIE LIVRE de R. Belfer « Guide ménager et galant de l’homme d’intérieur »

Type: 
Presse
Technique description référence: 
ARTICLE SORTIE LIVRE de R. Belfer « Guide ménager et galant de l’homme d’intérieur »
MORCEL

inédit « Point virgule » Photocopie article

Type: 
Presse
Technique description référence: 
inédit « Point virgule » Photocopie article
MORCEL

fax pour projet exposition

Type: 
Manuscrit
Technique description référence: 
fax pour projet exposition
MORCEL
Description: 
Ambiance:

Night of the opening. Outside, it is dark. Narrow streets of the old town of Vallauris in the heights, lit by yellow lamps. Piss, dogs walking along the gutters. Cool warmth of March. Voices coming from the houses. I go far up the street, in my worn bridal gown, used a hundred times. If this is the last time I would dress as a bride in a performance, I need it. Discretely, I’m holding an aluminum saucepan that has a string through the hole in its handle. I can make out the lights and the shadows in the little silhouettes moving in front of the entrance to the gallery. Among drinking fest, civility, and condolence, let the art party begin! I’m alone up here, and soon I’m going to do my stunt. The others are amateurs, sleeping behind closed windows to avoid the art world.

Preparation:

I got dressed in a potter’s studio on a street adjoining the Galerie 49 just before the performance. Dust and white clay all over the floor. Powder. I chose a big, round, thrown pot, a white bisque with an opening just narrow enough to let my hand pass through and stay stuck inside. The pot waits in the exhibit space. That afternoon I also bought a white meringue from a bakery. Flour. Searching for white material. Food. Sugar. Salt. Rice. The panoply of white food stood out. I found a white cloth, a rag. There, the objects are in the gallery. They await my “official” arrival. I am alone with my saucepan in the night.

Evening humidity and coolness. Interior calm, before the rush towards art. Breathe, sweetheart, look at this evening. Alive. Always more alive. Art that sublimates reality? Oui, ma belle! C’est ça.

So…what? (purpose?)

I’m going to play the “wife” again, respond to the call on March 8 once again, scrape the ties of marriage, shrink the plans, bring out the feminine, the cliché, the great untreatable evils, march my unbridled virginity, the Bride, launch the lampoon, unleash my fury in poetry, in subtlety, in time-lag, on the role of the sweet housewife, and balance the ingredients outside the kitchen, with my recipes, my repetitions, my inventions, my daily finds. I’m going to jump into the lions’ den, tear down and slash the crowded masses, separate the groups of drinkers and chatters who are getting buzzed, watching each other, strutting around. Laughing, and who will laugh even more when I come in. The illusion of education and culture, of a suspicion of presence, of refined thought, of a glimmer of intelligence. My watered-down sugar distilled into the crowd, my grains of dust opened up as I pass—will they really change anything in the clockwork of this exhibit?

View of a white body lurking in the shadows, in the chaos of words, in the brouhaha, offering an intermission, here and there, a pause in the image, a breakaway. Elsewhere, a few minutes away from the movement, a suspension in space. One more noise in the background cacophony. My ridiculous, intense confrontation of an evening. I cut a path, I make my hole, my place. Towards the importance of minuscule scattered, lost, rejected things. Time gets away, and I open the hourglass of the daily routine. Troubled party, air of defeat. The expected, programmed interference is welcomed. They ask for more. At the art fair. Just do it yourself: DIY!

Performance

I begin running through the street with a drain down the middle. I hold the white porcelain sphere in both hands. Slippery slope. The saucepan attached to a string at my waist, I zigzag and hurtle down the street. I control that aloof object that tries to return to the middle, towards the gutter. Gravitation and translation. Pulling towards the extremes. I run in circles, I retrace my steps, I turn, I drag this crazy, screaming alien after me. A brat, a scum, howling in the night, clinging to me in spite of it all. It echoes in the street. Laughter inside at my racket, my cry in the night. I stumble indiscreetly on a gentle slope. Noise like a locomotive. Iron and metal scraping on the sidewalk. The infernal machine on my heels with my white lace skirts. A dog or a cat to which someone has tied a saucepan. Ha ha ha. The jokes of art. Concrete, cement, and tar: the alloy of iron and stone for a romantic wedding. And I revel in the disorder! Exceed the limit. Delimited decorum! Spoiled brat. Manners are still to be found, though, down there, inside, in the gallery.

Half-way there the camerawoman has met me. Below, they have quieted a little, turned a little towards me. They watch and giggle. Outside in the front of the gallery. A few come out. Already too late. I move quickly. I don’t dawdle. They’ll either catch the act or not! So much for the photo and the video. Keep a keen eye and reflexes. You have to learn to see. So who’s watching all this? You, me, us: the same story! It’s over, I cross the threshold. The saucepan behind me. Gently, I organize the scratching and screeching and slide beautifully towards the crystallinity, the sound of the spheres. I move forward, dancing slowly, I magnify, I presentify, I incorporate into the human concept. I cross the room as a wife. I marry the contours of the others. Serendipitous string. And I pose. Saucepan removed gracefully. The din is done. There’s a spoon somewhere turning in the saucepan that signals the physical entry.

The order of memory has been lost... It must be the powder in my eyes, to start with. My little cream canvas bags filling my sight: delicate cloud of flower, sugar, salt, and rice falling on the tiled floor. And then between two white pedestals, having my hands on the jar: a sort of round mass giving birth at my touch. Fingers springing back. The balloon in the empty belly resounds. Throwing a moonlike star. Looking differently at an object: the art game... The ingredient and the jar. I am the fire. It will cook you, ladies and gentlemen. I will activate the alchemy of your eyes, the connection in all directions. Somewhere else, hidden, the white cake is waiting for me. Readymade to bite into, to savor. The piece is finished, cooked, completed by others besides me, will be eaten, taken into the mouth. Orality: once the artist has finished, you have to pass it through the sieve of words, through your mouth, through the written critique. Devouring of the piece, exhausting it, making it disappear, reappear in the linguistic experience.

And the performance will play even more on this rebirth of words and meaning. How noisy and crunchy the meringue is! Rock melting beneath the palace! A few white bows, a few evanescent pinches of delicate cynicism, and I go outside. Escaped from the white walls and the frames of the exhibit. They believe in the ending. Groups gather again. But there is still a white rag to catch somewhere, on the garden side. I go out. I am outside again. Through the glass door with the nice square panes. They are enclosed in their globe. The night air again. Cool. Nice and smokeless, sweatless.

The windows are dirty. Hard to see through them. Moving my face close to the window. Breathe: condensation. Bead evaporating. Everyone is familiar with this. Steam. Peep hole. Big pane of a window square. White wood. Seeing again. Seeing yourself now. Observing yourself. Do you see me? Gone and still here. On the other side. The screen. The little glass of single people. All these transparent, obvious frames. Your portraits. Can you still see it? This bride now rubbing the tiles. She cleans the square. She is serving art. Server. Someone has to clean up the damage. To sweep. Afterwards. It’ll be her again doing that.

She moved away from the doors. She is behind. Her rag hangs from her hand. She hears a very vague patter of hands clapping. She fades into the garden, in the darkness.

As always, she will have to come back from the other world.

Towards the light, the voices, the bodies, and life.
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
Elisabeth Morcellet | photographie de la performance "Ménage galant", 2002 | © Elisabeth Morcellet - ADAGP, Paris 2012 | photographie : © DR | courtesy de l'artiste
''