Filmoteka Muzeum

Ambiguity, fun and grotesque as a merciless attack on the delicate issue of sex stereotypes and social expectations towards the manner of shaping gender identity – this is the core theme of Autoerotique.

The ironic distance effectively dissolves here the sensitive character of the tackled issues. Screened simultaneously, two projections of the artist both as a man and a woman, with sex indicated by his clothes, who actually strips and exchanges them, dancing to a powerful disco rhythm.

Both literal and metaphorical, cross-dressing stands here for the author’s ironic commentary on social expectations in the context of gender identity. However, as in most of Rumiancew’s works, self-erotic performance is not merely pure critique of the social status quo.

Apart from the humorous grasp of the problem of gender as a masquerade and unsophisticated game, the artist, bouncing to disco music, also propagates the idea of gender in a state of flux, suggesting that each one of us holds both anima and animus.

References: J. Zielińska, Daniel Rumiancew, in: New Phenomena in Polish Art after 2000, CSW Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw 2007; J. Baudrillard, The Conspiracy of Art, MIT Press, 2005; M. Nieludcew, Tańcząc ze łzami w oczach. Daniel Rumiancew w Goldex Poldex, http://cojestgrane.pl.
 

(AH)