Re: the blog's ongoing 'This Is How You Will Disappear' work-in-progress posts, an adjunct: Gisele Vienne's Portraits

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When Gisele hasn't been working on the creation of our forthcoming theater piece, she was engaged in making a series of formal photographic portraits of the forty lifesize dolls featured in the theater works that she and I have created since beginning our collaboration: 'I Apologize' (2004), 'Un Belle Enfant Blonde' (2005), and 'Kindertotenlieder' (2007). These portraits recently had their debut in an exhibition at the Antipodes Festival in Brest, and, whenever possible, they will be exhibited in conjunction with the upcoming performances of 'This Is How You Will Disappear'. We consider the dolls to be actors in our works almost on a par with the human performers, and, although the dolls aren't credited individually in the works, they each have names and fictional biographies constructed by Gisele. These biographies are used to determine which roles might be suited to their 'personalities'. Some of the dolls have been featured in multiple works, and several have played both male and female roles. Below you will find fifteen of the portraits, and, at the bottom of the post, images of some of the dolls 'in performance'.


Press release: Entre 2003 et 2008, Gisèle Vienne a réalisé de nombreuses poupées représentant des adolescents de taille humaine. Pendant l’année 2009, elle en tire quarante portraits en photographie numérique et argentique, afin de composer une exposition spécifiquement conçue pour le festival des Antipodes’10.

'Quarante visages d'adolescents mènent, à la manière d'un morphing réalisé à la peinture, de la figure de la Lolita à celle d'un nouveau genre de Lolita, George Miles, muse de Dennis Cooper. Ces portraits explorent l'ambiguïté de ces figures qui suscitent une fascination immense et finissent souvent en victime dans de nombreuses œuvres littéraires et cinématographiques. Les photographies des visages peints à l'acrylique et leur représentation en deux dimensions engendrent une forme hybride de portraits photographiés évoquant la peinture.' -- Gisele Vienne




















































'I Apologize'












'Un Belle Enfant Blonde'










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