Camille [Move Fest Košice]

In 2018, the art group Med a prach created the work eu.genus, which oscillated between a studio, an open rehearsal, an educational concert, an installation and a performance. A wide range of Slovak and foreign performers participated in it. Lívia MM Balážová remained fascinated by the experience of the creative process and the resulting work. She decided to pay closer attention to the life of the French sculptor Camille Claudel, who was one of the sources of inspiration in composing eu.genus.

Fragments of a woman, fragments of a body, fragments of a work. A constant balancing act between the materialization of a work and its destruction. A quote from Louise Bourgeois: “I do, I undo, I redo,” very accurately describes this cyclical nature of creation. It is a process of creation, destruction and remaking, which approximates Claudel’s own experience with art.

In her performance, Lívia MM Balážová works with the messages and imprints left by one woman straddled between reality and dream, work commitment and private tragedies, freedom and imprisonment in an institution. What was it like to be a woman artist in the past? What is it like today? How many times do I have to reshape and reshape myself in order to find satisfaction and fulfillment? And will it ever come? What is the boundary between work and personal? Is there one at all?

Camille Claudel (1864–1943) worked in the period at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when female artists did not have the conditions to be educated and present their work. She lived for a long time in the shadow of the famous sculptor Auguste Rodin, who was her mentor and collaborated on several of his works. Her love of art, creation, Rodin, the loss of an unborn child, and the difficult task of establishing herself in the artistic circles of the time led her to a psychological breakdown. Claudel's delicate depictions of the human form resulted in sculptures that were censored by the authorities and the press of the time as too sensual and inappropriate. She destroyed approximately 90 of her sculptures and was haunted by paranoia. For more than half of her life, this talented artist was locked up in an institution for the mentally ill, where she eventually died in solitude. She lived her life in the shadows, and the essence and qualities of her work were discovered, named, and documented only after her death.
The Camille Claudel Museum is located in her hometown of Nogent-sur-Seine, and her other works are in the Rodin Museum and in collections around the world.

Concept and performer: Lívia MM Balážová
Dramaturgical cooperation: Monika Kováčová
Director's assistance: Zebastián Méndez Marín
Producer: Rafa Ávalos
Set design: Juraj Poliak
Music: Matej Sloboda
Technical cooperation: Lukáš Kubičina