Mirrors and Phantasy | Manege # 3 at .HBC

Have you ever dreamed about dressing up in leather and then polishing body with a shoe brush? No? Well French artist Mathieu Cortin has. And he captured that phantasy on a webcam. The result will be screened at .HBC tonight as part of Manege #3, an art event curated by the French artist Pauline Payen that has been taking place in alternating locations since March.

The main theme of the exhibition is confusion, especially in the context of mirrors and reflection. Frank Kafka's “...this is how we work for our own confusion” inspired the three participating artists Pauline Payen, Mathieu Cortin and Iris Musolf to work around the topic in relation to erotic desire (Cortin), intercultural communication (Musolf) and psychological manipulation (Payen).

Iris Musolf documented a trip to a Chinese shopping mall where she noticed that all the salesgirls wore identical outfits. When trying to figure out where to find one of those outfits for herself, Musolf realized that the selesgirls spoke no English while she couldn't understand Chinese. The communication that unfolded was full of cultural confusion within a context of mirroring cultures, East and West.

Payen studied art in Toulouse and Braunschweig and isn't actually a curator, but a visual artist. “But I was tired of waiting around for something to happen so I created Manege,” Payen. Her contribution to Manege #3 shows a pair of eyes that has set itself the impossible task of trying to focus two cameras at the same time, mimicking the motion that occurs when we try to look at both of our conversational partner's eyes at the same time. Payen filmed eyes for one hour with a security camera. To follow her eyes, the spectator has to follow their motion with his or her glance and inevitably ends up stuck in the movement.

The exhibition will close with a musical performance by Marianne Jaquet who will perform a secret cover song with her ukulele, followed by a party with funky tunes by DJ Snax.

(glo)