Gioconda’s Smile: from mythic to techno ritual (International performance art festival – the third annual exhibition of SCCA Chisinau)
1998 SCCA, Center for Contemporary Art, Chisinau Moldova
gioconda`s smile is conceived as a meeting of the representatives from several countries for a few days of collaboration in an artistic medium which is performance. The title is essentially in order to analyze and rethink the genre from the viewpoint of the historical evolution of fine arts. Meanwhile the festival will be an official presentation of performance to the local audience.
By titling the event with a metaphorical epithet of the symbolic smile from historical fine arts Number One symbol, i.e. Leonardo`s Mona Lisa, we take the responsibility to apply it figuratively to one of the most revolutionary and provocative artistic and spiritual manifestations of postmodern times. We dared to call it the mysterious smile of contemporary fine arts, that is the art of the human body, senses, experiences and spirit.
One of the main aims involves introducing the new medium to the traditional art lover in Moldova. Even though it already has a limited history in Moldova, performance still remains a mysterious innovation (terra incognito) here, mainly due to its own revolutionary essence. The absolute rejection of the object (the work of the artist) as a final product, which has served the consumer’s aesthetically delight since the institutionalization of fine arts, in favor of an immediate corporeal and spiritual beauty, has generated an essential shift in the history of aesthetically thinking. The event will take place in a very rich environment in this sense. Considering our heritage in terms of the traditions and rituals of our ancestors we anticipate a reincarnation of a sublime expression into contemporary frame.
Using the human body as an expressive tool to convey a message has a long ethnographic and folkloric tradition in the European Southeast. Folk drama holds an important place in Moldovan folklore, especially in customs related to the calendar and cycles of human existence. For example, those customs connected to the winter solstice offer an ample inventory with various ritual attributes like actors, garments, mimic, gestures and motions, masks, etc. I think that the drama tradition mentioned above serves as one of the major justifications for the great interest (perhaps only subconsciously) which appears the new generation of local artists. Even though its history is very recent in Moldova this medium is very often utilized by many visual artists. We would like to reconsider this cultural heritage of ours in order to give it another new dimension. We see a return to the rite as to a modern ceremonial act which did not consumed the potential and the senses. It just modified its aspect due to electronically – informational environment we live.
Octavian Esanu
