Encorpsdages: Embodying Ambiguity—Solo Exhibition by Nicole Dufour at MOCAStudio reflects the artist’s years of experience of living abroad, and represents her unique observations of life, nurtured by cultural differences and exotic environment she has encountered. The Encorpsdages series in the first room and the hallway combines body performances of the models with a braided rope. This series of photography and video shows diverse interactions between human body, mind and the red rope. Some of the models are in bondage, silent and passive; some of them struggle to be free, shouting and screaming; some are in relief, leading the rope for a dance duet. The ambiguous diversity exists between the people and the object because the artist does not choreograph the movements of the models or manipulate the setting. Instead, she captures their spontaneous reactions like an observer of life. In other words, she allows the models to speak with their own bodies and demonstrate their feelings and reactions towards the restricting adversities. Her work mixes ambiguous circumstances such as resistance, submissiveness, co-existence and collaboration, and reveals diverse possibilities of facing the vicissitudes in life. Viewing the Encorpsdages series, audiences might as well ask themselves: if in their lives, there were difficulties or dilemmas like the red rope in the artworks has symbolized, how would they react physically and psychologically? As they would ask themselves this question, the audiences’ and the models’ positions would have switched and enriched the meaning of this series.
Whereas the Encorpsdages series that formulates her contemplation of life through visual media, the Fetishes series is a group of sculptures that manifests intangible emotions. The artist uses a type of red plastic string extremely common in Taiwan, and conducts a conversation with herself as well as a kind of imaginative writing. Traditionally speaking, fetishes are used as tools in African rituals by shamans to resolve or avoid misfortunes for people. The artist has made 60 fetishes, of which the sizes range from 50 centimeters to 2.5 meters. For her, each fetish tells a story of his or her own since the beginning of the binding process, just like each person is molded into individual being through different circumstances in life. Some of the fetishes are individuals; some appear to be lovers or mothers and children. Together, they form a special community in the exhibition, observing the visitors while being watched at the same time, enabling a dialogue particularly designed for this exhibition.
Before the exhibition, the artist completed a two-month residency at Grass Mountain Chateau. While bathing in the lush late spring of the Yangming Mountain, she also created many artworks in the mountains. The photos in the second room are more relaxing and carefree, mirroring her state of mind of wandering in the woods of Taiwan. The five pieces of the Ghost in Grass Mountain series foreground the blurry image of a flying red rope, which is like a forestry spirit that is not frightening despite the series title. The fourteen pieces in the Play with My Rope series capture the spontaneous interaction between the models and the rope, showing another interesting aspect of life in addition to the bondage motif. Encorpsdages: Embodying Ambiguity echoes the concept of the Golden Mean in Chinese philosophy. Presenting the three states of binding, struggling and dancing with the rope in photography is the artist’s way of interpreting the dynamics between balance and imbalance in life as well as the rhythm of life from adversity to complacence.
*image (left)
MES TRESSES À TAIWAN -Qing an 2, 2012-2013
© Nicole Dufour
Courtesy of MOCA Taipei
