The King, 1972
Vidéo noir et blanc, sans son, réalisée d'après un film de 16 mm / Master localisé au FNAC
In The King, a video taken from a series of performances given between 1972 and 1978, Eleanor Antin films and photographs herself with a disguise that allows her to construct her ideal masculine self-portrait; an alter ego, the head of state of Solana Beach, a city in California. This character already highlighted Eleanor Antin’s taste for allegory and the tragi-comic, which run throughout her most recent creations.
During these performances, she crosses the city in this masculine form and goes to meet the subjects of her kingdom, concerned by the problems that the community has been encountering. Following the model of a political personality, she listens to them, advises them, warning them, for instance, of real estate entrepreneurs who are destroying the environment.
In her filmed performance The King, the artist films her transformation. In a dark room, without any precise decor, and with controlled, theatrical lighting, she sits down at a make-up table, facing a mirror. She applies locks of hair that she has cut to zones of her face that have been previously outlined with black pencil, to give life to her character. She tries out various lengths of beards and moustaches with extreme care, before finally obtaining the length that corresponds to the identity of the King that she will incarnate.
All of her gestures are slow and precise, like choreography: a repeated ritual. The shots are linked by cinematographic crossfades. Eleanor Antin resembles an actor preparing in a dressing room. She slips into the skin of this anachronistic fantasy character. She does not need a sex change to become a man; the costume and posture are enough to switch genders. The clothes maketh the man.
Priscilia Marques
