The beautiful indifference
The beautiful indifference presents two small catalogs, one of images, the other of stories. The first presents a series of nudes found in Western painting between the 16th and 19th centuries; the second features voices alternating between art-historical and sex-work narratives. The two catalogs overlap, and in their interweaving produce points of contraction: art history awakens the thoughts at work in the images (the paintings), while sexual histories bend them (the images). The repetition of points of contraction works to flatten the excitement created by the nude, whose function it also is, and not to deny it - the excitement - but to relate it to the systems of representation from which it emanates, which it's high time we flattened too.
Gutting Vénus brings together three pieces - I kiss the eyes, The beautiful indifference and The Lock (fantasy figure wrongly attributed to Fragonard).
The end of each section is the starting point for the next: similar arrangement of people and objects, same red velvet curtain, same questions.
It's best to see all three parts if you want the questions answered. However, as the answer is not crystal-clear, you may be satisfied with one or two parts.
Directed by Claire Ananos