Odalisque Variations

The project investigates the observing gaze on a reclining woman depicted on a chaiselongue, based on the pictorial representations of Odalisques in the paintings of the 19th century by Ingres, Delacroix - and in a later development also Matisse. The reclining 'Oriental' woman allows the gaze of the painter without making direct contact with him. One might say, she displays a non-reactivity to the male gaze, allowing the viewer to immerse him/herself in the depicted subject.

How do performers deal with this 'legacy' today? What questions arise from a performance of ‘doing nothing’ from today's perspective? How this goes against the dominant tendency and social pressure of being permanently ‘busy’… 'Doing nothing' in public is a challenge, not only for the performers themselves, but perhaps even more for the viewers... In Odalisque Variations the performers become the subject of observation and at the same time they also observe themselves...

This raises the question of what changes when we are being observed. Ever since quantum physics showed that all phenomena change when viewed from the outside. This applies also to the arts and has been a topic of a number of performance artists, recently. ‘Witnessing’ has also become an important field of experience in group and healing processes in recent years.

Another aspect is the "mirror effect" of being seen and seeing and their mutual influence and interaction in space.

Ultimately, the project also questions notions like 'Orientalism', the ‘Exotic’, the 'Otherness' in the embodiment of the female figure seen through the eyes of white male culture.

In 'Odalisque Variations' the performing artist can be male or female or any other gender definition… passive or reflective - exposed or introverted, giving rise to a broader sense of being in the moment.

'Odalisque Variations' is part of artist/curator Andrea Morein's research project on how artistic expression emerges from an embodied perspective; manifesting itself in the creative act as a contemplative, intimate space that is nourished by the source of non-doing.

Andrea Morein