Drawing Attention

2008

2 found chairs, selection of books, drawing performance

Drawing Attention involves a simple set of two facing vintage chairs and a pile of books, all dealing with the no- tion, the figure, and the myth of Medusa. During a short performance, the artist is seated and waits for someone to seat in the opposite chair. Once he has a facing potential visitor, he picks up one of the books and draws a blind portrait of the person on one of the pages, without ever looking at the drawing in process. Afterwards it is torn out of the book and pinned on the wall. The accumulation of randomly chosen pages (still readable under- neath the portraits) and images form a new story about Medusa whiled the pile of books represents the preced- ing 25 centuries of reflection on what Benoît Maire considers to be the perfect myth about seeing. The work questions the notions of mirroring, representation, the status of the artist and the audience, and it also proposes a re-interpretation of the dialogic situation and transmissions between artist and audience.