Julie Béna – Like the Moon in the Sun is my Shadow

I am sitting in a non-existent smoky cabaret. I am probably playing a minor character in the city of Twin Peaks, where I meet a playful singer (or narrator?). She watches me intently – perhaps she is playing with me. Do I feel awkward, or am I expecting something big? Although this atmosphere is con-ducive to performances (Have you seen Pantopon Rose?, 2016, 2017, Who wants to be my horse?, 2018, Rupert’s Tale, 2018), the center of the artist’s work lies in this play with reality and fiction, wherein the borders become blurry and the spectator does not know which side they are on. The year is 2016 and I am walking through the Štěpánská Passage, home to the Ferdinand Baumann Gallery. This was the site of the artist’s first solo exhibition in Prague (Purple Unicorn, 2016). The shop windows go by like a film of consumerist culture. Eroticizing objects that engage us in a lascivious game of forbidden fruit vary in contrasting materials; in craft and industrial processing. The objects themselves arise from the formal field of design and their fragmentary nature aptly leads the spectator to infinite asso-ciations. The artist is aware that this is fetishism interspersed with kitsch. We also encounter constructions made of anthropomorphic tentacles in Julie decided to try… (2017) or GENESIS (2018). The metal statues associate the tool used – for instance – by the protagonist of the film Basic Instinct to murder people. Is this a common tool for everyday use (an ice pick) or a murder weapon?

A more detailed interpretive key, discernible in the art-ist’s artistic expression, is a commentary that always breaks down to two delimited opposites and represents a characteristic dualist line. Contrasts appear in all the forms she works in – performance, video, ob-jects and installations – and are always unified by a locally specific context within the space or gallery. Her work is inspired by literature, scenes from cinematography, theater backstag-es, scenography and the aesthetic of the 90s. It manifests the artist’s sharp and strongly critical feminist language, which also appears in her latest exhibi-tion, The wolf, the princess and the little soldier (2021). Julie Béna thus empha-sizes the fact that she is simultaneously a mother and an artist, searching for answers to the question of gender equality between both these roles. She also creates dialogues – at this exhibi-tion, a dialogue with her daughter. The residuum, however, is somewhat mel-ancholic – the undisguised illusoriness of the existential societal crisis. It is like the star sign Gemini. The latency of personality is reflected in parallel – like the moon in the sun – in their shadow. The open end of two realities. However, this is merely an immersive fiction for the spectator.

Text: Text Záchová

IMAGE CAPTIONS

1–3 | Who wants to be my horse?, video still, 2018
4 | The Wolf, the princess and the little soldier, 2021, courtesy the artist and Gallery Polansky,
photo Jan Kolský
5–6 | Rupert’s tales, performance at Rupert, Vilnius, 2018, photo Evgenia Levin, Have you seen Pantopon Rose?, video still, 2015–2017
7 | JULIE DECIDED TO TRY GROWING WATERMELONS INSTEAD AFTER ONE HAD MYSTERIOUSLY COME … SHE EXPLAINED AS WE CHATTED IN THE MARKET, ‘BEFORE
BENA WAS A COLD PLACE, … ,2017, courtesy Galerie Joseph Tang
8 | Have you seen Pantopon Rose?, the one-person show, video still, 2017, courtesy Galerie Joseph Tang