Crime Passionelle
2002
In Crime passionelle we have turned the famous painting Déjeuner sur l'herbe by Manet into a crime investigation scene. The sitting nude has been murdered, but by who? And why? Was the walking stick, found broken in pieces and covered with blood stains, the murder weapon? To whom belonged the tie-pin that was found next to the body? The installation answers no questions. This murder will remain unsolved forever.
So why did we create this morbid art historical fantasy? To be honest, there were many reasons. Like the curator's wish for something three dimensional on the floor to fill up the empty space. Like us not getting permission for a picnic inside the museum as an alternative to the kind of opening where people stand around with glasses of museum quality wine, looking very serious and saying nothing particularly shocking in subdued voices. So, we fulfilled the curator's wish by making a picnic installation. But this still doesn't explain how murder entered the scene. We'll tell you, it was television that did it. It was television that taught us to connect art with crime.
Crime Passionelle
2002
On TV, in B-movies, in German Krimis, in British detective series, in American erotic-horror productions, the murderer is very often an artist. Being artist ourselves, we might pay more attention to this than other people. Personally, we don't take offence, but it is striking phenomenon that deserves more notice. To script writers artists may seem very convenient candidates for the job. Or should we say, the cliché artist, who exists only in our fantasies? The eccentric figure, the man with the dark passions, the frustrated genius, the broke, untalented and money-greedy shady character who works in a derelict loft. Artists don't hold nine-to-five office jobs. They have no witnesses and can't account for time supposedly spent in their lonesome studios. They invite beautiful women for nude portrait sessions and have contacts with other seedy elements in society who provide them with drugs or weapons. By profession, artists are suspect. Artists are not part of the society of working men and women. Artists are the evil strangers living amongst us. Artists have plenty of motive and no alibi.
