Marie-Ange Guilleminot

The work of Marie-Ange Guilleminot investigates the dynamics regarding the private space of the individual and his/her surroundings. As a form of ecology, the artist’s work brings into the focus the relationship and study of living beings in relation to their environment.
Guilleminot’s work is a vast research extending far beyond the fixed and established forms of art; it searches for ruptures, indetermination, and variety through the diversified supports she uses on each specific occasion. She has made use of video, sculpture, performance, often seeking the collaboration of groups of people. Each work takes on its form and existence at the point in time in which she presents a live or even only recorded action.
The series of the Poupées (Dolls) was created in 1993 as a video, followed by other “interpretations” manipulated by other persons she documented photographically.
Transformations and processes are the procedures adopted in most of her works. Since 1992, she has created a series of garments modeled on her own measurements, but whose cut, however, only allows one to see the head and arms. They offer the characteristics of soft, protective coverings. It is precisely through their intense and implicit tactile nature, the need for direct and physical contact, that the mental relationship solicited by her videos emerges.
By overtuning the tradition of Western sculpture, Guilleminot has developed a system of relationships and communication based on the immediacy and warmth of the quality of touch and proximity. In a play of seduction—but at the same time one of possible frustration—the sensual and experiential aspect of her work open the way to manifold possibilities of associations and interpretations capable of embracing the senses. [F.B.]

List of Works

Mes Poupées (My Dolls), 1993
video, color, sound, 30 min.
Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Rivoli-Turin
In a single, continuous, close-up shot, we see the hands of the artist that carry out a series of uninterrupted actions. By manipulating, crushing, and modifying a bag of rose-colored talcum powder, they mold organic forms, similar to imaginary organs. Often loaded with sexual connotations—both male and female—the forms suggested by the artist in the end appear to be hermaphroditic.
By evoking the world and time of infancy, this hypnotic video seems to refer to that phase in which sexuality has not yet been rigidly determined and where a tactile and sensual playfulness are an integral part of the growing process.

---