Introduction

OPERA (QM.15), 2016, by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, takes up residence in Gallery 3 of the Bourse de Commerce, infusing it with the presence of Maria Callas. 

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s oeuvre is inspired by the living memory of cinema and literature, as well as the open structures of architecture and music. In 2012, Gonzalez-Foerster began a series of performance works, or apparitions as she calls them, in which she embodies figures such as Bob Dylan, Emily Brontë, and Ludwig II of Bavaria, who together create M.2062, a fragmented opera with no beginning and no end, thus effacing any idea of a constant unit of time and action. These apparitions, in which the artist lets herself be inhabited by other characters, are sometimes in the form of holographic projections that bring iconic performances to life once again: Sarah Bernhardt in the role of L’Aiglon or Klaus Kinski playing the possessed Fitzcarraldo. Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster leaves the work open, giving it a sense of unfamiliarity that brings out the “here and now” and places the visitor at the heart of the work. In January 2016, she turned to opera, transforming herself into Maria Callas. This apparition became its own work, OPERA (QM.15).

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster
OPERA (QM.15)
Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris
April 6 – August 31, 2022
www.pinaultcollection.com