Body and cement - show unlike any other

www.dimitrismichalaros.com

Greece, year 2013. Action Field Kodra festival of arts in Thessaloniki. Title: Full Fill, Feel Fool. Rings a bell? Probably not, but this show was a thing worth to remember. Probably one of the weirdest but brave things if it comes to combination of female body and art...

"Someone full fills you, but at the end you feel fool. Then you try to break the blocks but at the end your brake breaks and knocks your bloke off. Are you distractive or destructive, distracted or destructed? Raw view, raw materials, raw thoughts, raw feelings in a row to follow." 

Underneath this rather vague description lies a performance by Greek artist Dimitris Michalaros and his living piece of art - model Karen Gina Georgoudis. The concept is very original and shocking at some level: Nude performer is almost entirely encased in block of solid concrete and displayed in the gallery of art. Sounds as if it was a dream of ASFR fan, but it's just the beginning as the idea is far more sophisticated. 

The block with immobilized model is placed on construction mounted into large frame and all that together is raised to vertical position, so one can say the whole is creating another wall in the middle of the room. As result the block and the performer within are hanging above the ground. The exact show begins when the construction is slowly lowered back to the floor. Spectators gathered around can watch the trapped woman now laying down face to the ground, waiting patiently for the next stage of the show. Only her head and legs are sticking out of the concrete. The artist starts to destroy the block, using hammer and chisel. It takes a couple of minutes until the concrete is crushed into pieces and the performer is finally released.

Surprisingly, it's not over, as the performance has the second part. More erotic and more puzzling at some level: model may appear still objectificated by the author as he openly exposes her nudity to public, but on the other hand, he offers her great dose of gentleness and sensibility. After releasing artist leads the model to the front of the public, where he cleans her body from the rests of the concrete with his own hands. Woman passively surrenders to this actions, without any word or try to hide her intimacy. The close bound between them becomes clear, when they finally embrace each other.

You could say it's enough for the show, but this was the preludium for the final part - destroying the mold. Hard to tell what was in the artist mind, but maybe this act can be interpreted as the revenge model gets on the construction she was trapped in? Artist introduces the performer into the act of destruction: Model is given an angle grinder and starts to cut off the steel frame which supported the concrete block. The process builds up a great contrast, when nude and delicate woman literally disappears in the rain of sharp sparks of metal and concrete debris...

In the final of the performance, artist guides his model away from the construction right to the crowd of spectators where she stands just between the public - she is not performer anymore, she's just an observer: She's watching as the men ends the act of destruction by pulling the remains of block and steel frame to the ground. The performance is over.

Among great things about the show, despite the basic idea of course, is the behavior of the performer - she is completely inert, passive and willingly surrendering to all the actions the artist wants to do with her. Despite being completely naked, she doesn't appear to be stressed by the presence of strangers around her. Even at the end, when she merges into to anonymous crowd of spectators. She appears to be the part of show while being out of this show at the same time, as if the things that happen aren't affected to her. Or maybe it's just an impression...

Dedication of Karen Gina Georgoudis to the performance is another thing. She endured a great inoconvenience, to say the least. One of my personal favourite aspects, when model has to sacrifice herself for the undertaking a lot. Girl got along with being solidly encased and placed in uncomfortable position, as if she was just a piece of material, not a human being. Then she has to helplessly wait until the artist release her from the shell. And finally, her nudity was shamelessly exposed to the public - witnesses of her objectification. From the technical point of view I wonder if there were any rehersals done prior to the main show, as there were many things that could go wrong. Unfortunately, we're not able to see how the preparations for the performence looked like. It would be great to see that girl as she merges with wet cement, patiently waiting untill the mass is set, so she finally be turned into wall decoration... We can only wonder how long she was encased from the very beginning to the end of the show...

Now you probably want to see for yourself the entire performance. So, here's the video of Full Fill, Feel Fool action.