14 Nov 2009

Marnie Weber at Sint-Lukas Gallery, Brussels

Marnie Weber: The Campfire Song

With The Campfire Song the Los Angeles based artist Marnie Weber presents her most recent multimedia installation. Through a darkened space the visitor is drawn in by a burning campfire around which all kinds of mysterious creatures have gathered. A song is playing. The song is embedded on a 16 mm film, which is shown in a depending space. The soundtrack starts quite melodic, then becomes more frenzied and frenetic and concludes with the lead girl singing a melancholy song about life and death. The film brings the same installation alive with dancing Spirit Girls around the fire. The artist states that the scene around the campfire can be viewed as a sacrificial scene. The film is highly affected with colors, streaks, and light leaks which creates a moving painting, this coupled together with a dramatic soundtrack creates a whirling, psychedelic and transcendental experience.

In her settings Weber deconstructs the world around her and reconstructs it through her odd fairylike characters in order to reveal something of the real world. Through her characters Weber explores social relationships and their power in society; tensions between childhood and adulthood, male and female, humans and animals, death and life. Emotions are pivotal in Weber's work. She deals with melancholy, happiness, loss and transgression. At the same time, by denying an outspoken narrative or moral, she brings the art to a new level. Weber presents us with multi-layered situations in which several narratives can in turn induce many interpretations. There's a sense of a personal mythology she's been building through the years in which each character grows stronger through transformation.

The Campfire Song will be included in Marnie Weber's next show, a filmic retrospective, held at Le Magasin in Grenoble (FR) from 7 February until 25 April 2010. www.magasin-cnac.org

Text taken from an essay by Ann Cesteleyn, 'Marnie Weber: a Bittersweet Symphony, that's Life', appeared in Sint-Lukasgalerie Brussels Magazine, nr. 4, sep–nov 2009.