Mathilde, Mathilde

Mathilde, Mathilde_video_thumbnail_1

At the root of the video project, Mathilde, Mathilde, is a question of namesake: particularly how to respond to other traumas happening to women bearing the same name. In the video, the artists juxtaposes dialogues and testimonies taken from characters in french cinema. These characters all bear the name Mathilde and narrate a different story about romantic dependency that often ends in self harm or suicide. At the core of the video is a sequence of the artist throwing her body double over a bridge, in a presumed imagined suicide. The video then cuts to these cinematic dialogues of women in Truffaut’s film La Femme d’à Côté (1980), Jean-Claude Briseau’s Noce Blanche (1990), and Patrice Leconte’s Le Mari de la Coiffeuse (1991). The nature of the montaged dialogues, devoid of faces or iconic sequences, creates the sensation that these different stories are one shared story that can then be ascribed onto the body of the artist who acts out a sacrifice that resembles both a suicide and a purging, of which the latter opens up the possibility of hope that these fatal dependancy’s can be conquered rather than internally consumed. The location for the short drama is Amsterdam where the artist used to live and work.

Sources
La Femme d’à Côté, François Truffaut (Director), 1981
Noce blanche, Jean-Claude Brisseau (Director), 1989
Le Mari de la Coiffeuse, Patrice Leconte (Director), 1990

This work has been shown at
Soloexhibitions
Fuck Patriarchy!, Viafarini, Milano, 2004
Tragedy, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich, 2002
98 00, Galerie de Expeditie, Amsterdam, 2000
Mathilde, Mathilde …, Galerie Arndt & Partner, Berlin, 2000
Galerie Martina Detterer, Frankfurt am Main, 2000

Groupexhibitions
Broken Fall (Organic), Astuni Public Projects, Bologna, 2011
Conflicting Tales, Burger Collection, Berlin, 2009
Number One: Destroy She Said, Julia Stoshek Collection, Düsseldorf, 2008
Female Trouble. Die Kamera als Spiegel und Bühne weiblicher Inszenierung, Pinakothek der Moderne, München, 2008
Body Double, Luckman Gallery, California State University Los Angeles, 2007
Disclosure, Reuten Gallerie, Amsterdam, 2006
Imagination Becomes Reality, Sammlung Goetz, München, 2005
Bremer Freiheit, Kunsthalle Bremen, 2005
Getting Rid of Madonna, Kunsthaus Dresden, 2005
Wonder Women, Frac Lorraine, Metz, 2005
Morir de amor, Museo Nacional de Ciencias y Artes, UNAM, Mexico City, 2005
Selbstporträt: Identität, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Hamburg, 2004
Duo Track, Argos, Brussel, 2004
Innocence and Violence, Arge Kunst Galerie Museum, Bolzano, 2004
Slip Role, Castlefields Gallery, Manchester, 2004
Love, Magazin 4, Bregenzer Kunstverein, 2003
Narcissus, CRAC Alsace, France, 2003
Taktiken des Ego, Wilhelm Lehmbruch Museum, Duisburg, 2002
Realities und histoires d’amour, Kunstverein, Ulm, 2002
Junge Kunst, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen, 2002
Printemps de Septembre, Les Jacobins, Toulouse, 2002
I am someone else, de Kapel, Amsterdam, 2001
Hemorrhaging of States, TENT, Rotterdam, 2001
A Arte do Povo, Central Electrico do Freixo, Porto, 2001
Double Trouble, Burusan Centre for Culture & Arts, Istanbul, 2001
The Big Nothing, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, 2001
Get That Balance, Kampnagel K3, Hamburg, 2001

Video-presentations
FEEL LIKE BEING OUTSIDE (a landscape with figures), cinema-w-o-l-k-e # 11, Brussels, 2013
#Videotapes 3, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, 2013
Mathilde ter Heijne, Videoart at Midnight, Kino Babylon, Berlin, 2010
Internationaler Tag der Frauenvideos, Videobar in Kino Babylon, 2007
Art Video Lounge, ArtBasel Miami Beach, 2006
Melancholie, Neue National Galerie, Berlin, 2006
Kurzfilmfestival, Oberhausen, 2005
La Casa Encendida, Madrid, 2005
49˚N6˚E, Frac Lorraine, Metz, 2003
La nuit art video, Maillon-Wacken / Théâtre de Strasbourg, 2003
Berlin-London-2001, ICA, London, 2001
No-site-specific, Lux Gallery, London, 2000
Combinazione!, Video Festival, Musée Art Contemporaine, Lyon, 2000

Text in video

Mathilde is very beautiful
When I saw her, I thought she must be Italien
No, she’s French
I knew from the start she’d be very important to me
I never looked for the “ideal woman”
Nor any woman, in fact
But when I met Mathilde,
I knew she was my only hope
In fact I said to myself;
“This is you last chance of happiness”
I’m glad you’re interested in the outside world
No, I only listen to the songs
They’re the ones that tell the truth
The more stupid they are the more true
They’re never stupid anyway
They say things like;
“Never leave me”
“Without you my life has no meaning”
“I’m an empty shell without you”
“Let me only be the shadow of you shadow”
“Without love, where would we be?”
(from: La femme de la côté, François Truffaut, 1981)

Mon amour
I’m going before you do
I’m going before your desire dies,
because then we’d be left with tenderness alone
and I know that wouldn’t be enouh
I’m going before I grow unhappy
I go bearing the taste of your embraces, your smell,
your kisses
I’m going remembering the best years of my life
the ones you gave me
I kiss you slowly
until I die
I always loved you
I loved only you
I’m going so you’ll never forget me
Mathilde
(from: Le mari de la coiffeuse, Patrice Leconte, 1991)

 

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