François Cheval (FR)
Outro catalogue Home Game by memymom
Published by Le Botanique
May 2021
In a dreamlike manner, “memymom” endeavours to give form to an existence of endless complexity, nourished by all the elements that constitute a fate. From early childhood to adulthood, what should have been a self-portrait becomes an obsessive picture of representation. But the photographic double does not cover the exposure of oneself. It is not a true copy of the persona. In the parallel universes created during adolescence, the course of one’s life is only retraced in snippets that match sequences and titles of series. A cursory psychoanalysis makes every personal narrative into an attempt to conceal reality, the quest for potential hidden meaning. When reading the images, we should look for a latency, that is to say, we should try to fill in the gaps in the order of representation, particularly in family, social and intimate life... Year after year, Lisa De Boeck – whether alone or together with her mother, Marilène Coolens – has amassed pseudo-self-portraits in which she is simultaneously the author, the protagonist, but also the narrator and the spectator of a never-ending project.
One could lose oneself on the way, researching, and trying to find past events in episodes devoid of orderly chronology. There are no lived moments, whether traumatic or prosperous, and nothing is revealed about the character incarnated by Lisa De Boeck in the scenes that she methodically designs with Marilène Coolens. The succession of portraits consists of a series of stories and attitudes chosen and adapted to suit the circumstances of historical and political eras. There is a strong desire to comment on current events and to give little credit to a psychologising interpretation of the images. The accidents of life, the ones that are said to have the ability to shape facial features, memories, and the workings of individual memory, play a smaller role in those fictional sequences. The “truth” of the image lies beyond the facts perceived, personal interpretations, and the analysis per se. The event recorded doesn’t want to be a self-portrait, but rather it proposes to outline a contrasting picture of the society in which our two “photographers” – the mother and daughter – live. The memymom diary is not a confession of a life, it does not romanticise it, but extrapolates the everyday, lucid extravagances of two Erinyes that appear to suggest borrowed behaviour. Sometimes, they can even be kind.
We must therefore acknowledge the existence of this character, which is a pure creation... At the outset, when little girls engage in activities linked to their gender and social background, Lisa De Boeck portrays herself. In these early days, it is difficult to differentiate between pure narcissism and a desire to build a discordant image.
Let us take for granted the essence, the determination to make an image. Because the system put in place from the earliest age persists. The outrageous use of make-up, explicit poses, and cross-dressing are still in use. Had these photographs not had such a deviant potential, if they were not so astonishingly mature, they would not emerge from the self-representation of adolescence that has no other consideration than to affirm a budding personality. A gruelling list of selfies, before their time. Hence, the first images reveal a precocious fascination for the nature of representation and go beyond self-observation. But the narcissistic reference does not contribute to the understanding of the work, which plays with changing states, with a body that covers itself, changes, and gives it substance. After all, life is nothing but a series of transformations and roles that we assume, consciously or unconsciously. We must oppose the multiplicity of the self with a plurality of forms of behaviour, a heterogeneity of individuals. By freezing postures, photography clearly reveals the submission to the moment. The artifices of the studio not only become obsolete but they soon become ridiculous. You have to be naive to think that you are unique!
Intimate or so-called intimate reality is only a distorted reflection of constantly denied constraints. Through the use of a seemingly dense fragmented narrative, we are allowed – on the other hand – to combine several universes, amusement parks, hospitals, beach games, etc. The image is improvised. It is made by collecting heterogeneous clothes, reusing family settings and imitating the attitudes used in advertising. “memymom” does not repair the world. As a non-ambitious photography, it does not want to change the world. It just gives it coherence inside the moment by introducing a logic that confers consistency to the character, a depth that owes nothing to humanist universalism but that is part of the contradictions of an era, in the affirmation of a culture of non-sense. Over time, a programmatic continuity emerges around identity, gender and social codes, captured in photographs in a form that is non-documentary. A colourful farce and oddities turn these photographic moments into playlets, each with its own tone, sometimes absurd, often sarcastic. Irony organises the whole. It allows characters to coexist in the small theatre of photography. These characters are very different from each other but share the same desire to offer an image to others.
Just as in one of Lorenzo Lippi’s paintings, who hides behind the masks? Is it Melpomene – the muse of Tragedy or Thalia – the muse of Comedy? These masks, caricatures of the commedia dell’arte, represent the true face of the world, a historical world, a world of conventions. In a universe that is anything but fictional, in this broken civilisation where drama becomes buffoonery, in this realistic pantomime, the actors of a bizarre human comedy dance about. The “memymom” system can be content with a few types, from the yellow jackets to the bourgeoisie, from the new proletarians to the plutocrats addicted to Gucci or – or even worse – Versace.
We are confronted with a divided subject. The multiple doubles evolve amidst confusion and noise. And if their instances are countless, what they express best are unthought and repressed tendencies. Various repressions and inhibitions (nationalism, submission to the present, satisfaction, etc.) challenge one another in a grotesque battle against the desire for liberation.
What is it really all about? Is it an acerbic essay on the habits of the bourgeoisie beyond Quiévrain, a caricature of the urban petite-bourgeoisie, a critique of contemporary narcissism? Existence is nothing but a series of episodes where we feel torn, in contradiction with ourselves. Photography reflects the crisis. It proceeds by establishing tension. The image does not create unease; it incarnates it. The irreverence of the project lies in the joy of undermining every form of authority. Of the targets perceived, none resists. Narrow nationalism, patriarchy, traditional morality and consumerist seductiveness are all constantly called into question.
To say that photography is capable of resolving these forever opposed instances would mean giving it a power that “memymom” doesn’t grant itself. The protean, changing and provoking being in a quest for determination is inherently illusory, in the image of the country it inhabits, of the city it traverses as a privileged witness. It offers itself to our sometimes seduced, sometimes irritated gaze, whose curiosity it knows well to awaken. “memymom” forges kinship between all the places and people encountered. The different series combine feelings and impulses, tenderness and sarcasm in a restricted landscape, between the family studio and street scenes. At the heart of the plot, the Belgian capital is the setting for specific and familiar journeys. Two worlds coexist, two moments overlap: from the space of the restricted and cluttered flat to the solemnity of the modern and bright city. Naturally, there is a mockery of the monumental in its conceit. But the incorporation of figures into the public space breathes substance into the story.
In the metro, on the Roaring Lion in Woluwe, in the company of emigrants, while strolling with dancers, when spying on princesses, people end up in the city. In the end, they all become one big family of women and men which obeys the demands of the photographers, Lisa De Boeck and Marilène Coolens. They will live only once: a yellow-clad worker, a politician’s wife at the door of the confessional, a professional lifeguard bathed in sunlight, a Walloon muse with tremendous courage... And still more women and girls, seen in Hollywood, on the Spanish coast, in a nearby neighbourhood, excessively stylised. But also tired old biddies, over- ripened by time, and whose faces have withered. But the presence of these women – whom nothing links together a priori – offers an antidote to male domination. If we look closely at these images, we will see the absurdity of a particular form of male desire.
Everything unfolds automatically. The perspective from which we see the playlets keeps changing and, paradoxically, becomes increasingly similar. The future is predictable. The past relives. And both feed on the images of the present. The image, as a short commentary, conveys the strength and persistence of appearances. The casualness of the times heralds the fundamental gravitas of the human condition! Without precaution, without prudence, the two acolytes assail a “common sense” that is nothing less than a pretext for apathy. Vulgarity pushed to the edge of relentlessness drives us to our very limits.
Abruptly and in a single body, the other faces up. But what can we do about it? Unexpected apparitions too arise grotesquely, with nonsensical objects and relationships. If we must endure the truth of the bodies of others – real life – the same cannot be said of the closed universe of images. Since we are forced to submit to the fundamental presence of others, photography – with its awareness of this impossibility – provides the opportunity to modelise. It delights in setting up a typology of desired presences. To the very extent that the imaginary does not meet the gaze of the other, it overpowers it. There are no possible exchanges. The other becomes prey, a fantasised object that cannot restrict the actions of mother and daughter, the mistresses of destiny.
History – or fate – always imposes itself. It trains us to be the subjects of current events. We may well want to improve ourselves, but we hide our true character, the nature of our class! Our defects, our little quirks, our perversions, etc.!
By adopting the style of History, which deliberately suppresses any personal mark, “memymom” treats others as historical beings who can only resolve their problems by behaving in any way they like, by embodying restrictive dreams, by fulfilling damaged fantasies. And there, where one might hope for enigmatic scenes, there are only hundreds, thousands of situations, and wrinkled skins that have already been put on. The banal bricolage consists of hiding behind reassuring models, to lean on a community of pre- established gestures. What can be seen is never invented. It has been fashioned, tested by common sense in many situations.
The viewer’s need for an advance knowledge of the narrative marks the dependence of the actions on the images themselves. The coded acts and gestures are not isolated. They would be meaningless if they could not be related to a mechanism recognisable to human reason. Rather than photography, “memymom” reminds us of the importance of observation. This Belgian “rationalism” is worthy of the primacy given to evocation since all expressions have been depleted.
This is where the “memymom” experience differs. Using obvious terms and truisms, it formulates what we all refuse to admit: our own alienation.