GRAND TOURISTS (2010)
A project by Sara Manente, Ondine Cloez and Michiel Reynaert grandtourists.weebly.com
Tourists, hunters, landscape designers, savages, painters, gardeners, models, portraits, walkers, passers by, connoisseurs. Different ways of looking at arts and being seen as art.
Grand Tourists is inspired by the original Grand Tour. It starts with experiencing art or experiencing everything as art. It continues with blending the idea of watching and being watched into a double role in which we are all embedded: as much as we are visible, we can also look. We are audience and performer at the same time. It possibly ends with us guiding/tutoring the spectator, as if we become something to look at: art ourselves. We would like to document the Tour collecting and producing material for an archive, a sort of Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities).
"The primary value of the Grand Tour, it was believed, lay in the exposure both to the cultural legacy of classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to the aristocratic and fashionable society of the European continent. In addition, it provided the only opportunity to view specific works of art, and possibly the only chance to hear certain music. A grand tour could last from several months to several years. It was commonly undertaken in the company of a knowledgeable guide or tutor."
With “Grand Tour” we want to play out the group-effects that determine typical questions of an audience (and the answers they come up with): “Where am I supposed to look? What is happening behind the scenes? Is someone looking at me too? Can I participate? Can I be part of this group?” This was already happening in the in-progress-showings of “Lawaai Means Hawaai” (our first work together), which were done in the passageways of theater and arts venues. These performances used the architecture and its way of guiding crowds and their gaze, confronting the audience with the look of passers by, making the audience move in response to the dance, which itself was a response to the building.
"Dance is hard to see" Yvonne Rainer, in Being watched, 1966
"To invite being seen" Deborah Hay, Lamb at the altar, 1994
Drawing by Ondine Cloez
Photos by Julien Chevy
Tourists, hunters, landscape designers, savages, painters, gardeners, models, portraits, walkers, passers by, connoisseurs. Different ways of looking at arts and being seen as art.
Grand Tourists is inspired by the original Grand Tour. It starts with experiencing art or experiencing everything as art. It continues with blending the idea of watching and being watched into a double role in which we are all embedded: as much as we are visible, we can also look. We are audience and performer at the same time. It possibly ends with us guiding/tutoring the spectator, as if we become something to look at: art ourselves. We would like to document the Tour collecting and producing material for an archive, a sort of Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities).
"The primary value of the Grand Tour, it was believed, lay in the exposure both to the cultural legacy of classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to the aristocratic and fashionable society of the European continent. In addition, it provided the only opportunity to view specific works of art, and possibly the only chance to hear certain music. A grand tour could last from several months to several years. It was commonly undertaken in the company of a knowledgeable guide or tutor."
With “Grand Tour” we want to play out the group-effects that determine typical questions of an audience (and the answers they come up with): “Where am I supposed to look? What is happening behind the scenes? Is someone looking at me too? Can I participate? Can I be part of this group?” This was already happening in the in-progress-showings of “Lawaai Means Hawaai” (our first work together), which were done in the passageways of theater and arts venues. These performances used the architecture and its way of guiding crowds and their gaze, confronting the audience with the look of passers by, making the audience move in response to the dance, which itself was a response to the building.
"Dance is hard to see" Yvonne Rainer, in Being watched, 1966
"To invite being seen" Deborah Hay, Lamb at the altar, 1994
Drawing by Ondine Cloez
Photos by Julien Chevy