lonely hearts @ SMU Berlin

Irène Mélix: lonely hearts

21. May 2021 – 18. October 2021

 

____WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT? [easy access] This exhibition was at the Gay Museum in Berlin. Irène Mélix, the artist has shown there various works. Many of these works were created from things she found in archives. For example, she collected many personals from queer people. (Queer means that people don’t think there are only two genders, men and women. And that not only men and women can love each other. There are many ways to love and live together). These personals were heard in the room. People have always been looking for other people, wanted to fall in love or were looking for sex. You can see all this in the personals. ____

 

Irène Mélix spent several years exploring the construction of lesbian identities and queer herstory, during which she gathered a collection of over 800 personal ads by lesbians and queers, so-called “lonely hearts”. She finds her material in historical magazines, queer archives and online platforms. The ads cover a wide variety of places, such as Australia, France, Kazakhstan, Germany, Poland, and the U.S., and write a queer herstory that is as transnational as it is non-linear, and spanning epochs. The short texts reveal complex stories of the writers’ loves, lives and sufferings, their economic situations, their desires, and their experiences of discrimination. Although anonymous and every one unique, they represent the lives and loves of queers and lesbians, who are often neglected even in queer historiography.

The exhibition lonely hearts at the Schwules Museum is merely a momentary inventory in this ongoing translocal and artistic research process. It brings together an interest in the stories of fellow lesbians, their lives and visibility as well as the search for different facets of love, desire and passion, and the pressing question of why there is so comparatively little to find. At the same time, these found objects show that they were and still are there, fellow campaigners, like-minded people, role models and friends; telling their stories – in novels, magazines, pictures and personal ads. And they also appear in the exhibition: in audio pieces, text collections, or as models in the re-staging of historical photographs.

In Homage to Alice Austen (2020), for example, Irène Mélix restages a photograph of American photographer Alice Austen (1866 – 1952), showing her and two female friends in relaxed poses and men’s suits. Austen was one of the first women, whose photographic work received public attention, but her lesbianism and 53-year relationship with her partner Gertrude Tate is often not mentioned in interpretations of her work. The work Silver Ring, Raw Diamond (2018) is based on a passage in Maximiliane Acker’s 1923 novel Freundinnen – Ein Roman unter Frauen, in which a sliver of diamond is emblematic of the washed-away parts of society and thus an allegory for discrimination. At the same time, whispers and voices are heard from different corners of the exhibition. The audio installation lonely hearts (ongoing) articulates the search for lust, love and partnership. The work has been specially adapted to the context of the Schwules Museum, as has the bar setting in which the audio work lila lieder (2018) will be heard, which describes the meeting of queer and lesbian characters in a busy bar across the span of a century.

In spite of the intensive artistic research, the lonely hearts project does not claim to be holistic and also wants to address its own voids. It is a snapshot in Irène Mélix’s continuing exploration of an idiosyncratic documentation of queer herstory(/ies) and it is as much an exhibition project, as it is a research platform and meeting place, all at once.

An exhibition by Irène Mélix. Curator: Vincent Schier.

Special thanks to Birgit Bosold, Carina Klugbauer and the team of Schwules Museum Berlin.

Find the lonely hearts online and respond to their ads: https://lonely-hearts.org

Landscape color photograph of an exhibition room. From the right the room is divided centrally by a bar, at the back left are a door and a high window. The walls are partly painted dark purple, island-like carpet shapes in the same shade are laid out in the back left corner and right front around the bar. The rest of the floor is light gray. On the opposite wall of the room is a large photo wallpaper depicting a ring being slipped over the pinky finger of a hand. In the left half of the picture, a white wall runs into the picture, with four light boxes attached to the front part of the wall, the foremost of which is slightly cropped. They show shadowy silhouettes of various people. Gallery lighting systems are attached to the ceiling of the room, with spotlights in some places. installation view, SMU Berlin (2021)
The landscape color photograph shows a view of an exhibition space with several corners. A dark purple painted wall is lined with a white bar at two different heights. Low, black lamps hang above the bar, and various histpric images and white outlines of collars are mounted on the wall. In front of the bar are two wooden bar stools. A round, dark purple carpet winds around the bar, the rest of the floor of the exhibition space is light gray. On the left edge of the picture, a person dressed in black with white sneakers, shaved head and mask is leaning on the bar; on the right bar stool sits another person dressed casually with short hair and mask, whose left elbow is also leaning on the bar. Both persons look at each other. On the right edge of the picture, two more people are standing closer together, also looking at each other. The left one wears black clothes and a green jacket, she also has short hair and a black mask on. The other one wears an orange jacket, short gray hair, a shoulder bag and also mask. She can be seen from the side and has her arms crossed. photos: SMU Berlin
The landscape black and white photograph shows three people standing in a garden in the center. In the background left and center trees and bushes can be seen, on the right edge of the picture in the crop an arbor and a bed that is limited by wooden beams. In the background of the left half of the picture are two pots with plants and there are three car tires stacked on top of each other. It is summer, the trees carry leaves. The three people are on the lawn, the middle one is sitting on a stool with steel legs. they are all three looking at the camera. All three are dressed in shirts, blouses and pieces of suits, they have short hair and caps on their heads, all three are wearing Doc Martens. The person on the left has a cigarette in her right hand, her left hand is hooked on her belt. She looks amused with her head slightly tilted to the left side. The right person has both hands buried in his trouser pockets and looks scrutinizingly serious, slightly bent forward. The person in the middle has his left leg bent above the knee and holds it with his right hand. An umbrella is stuck between her legs, its handle protruding exactly in the middle between her legs. Hommage to Alice Austen by Francy Fabritz, Nadine Grobeis, Irène Mélix (2021)
The landscape format color photograph is a detail shot of the bar. The left half of the image is occupied by the dark purple wall of the bar, on which hangs the white drawing of a collar with a bow tie and shirt, about 50cm high. It is limited only by fine black lines. At the bottom edge of the picture in the bleed is the white painted bar, in the background of the right half of the picture is a low-hanging black lamp of the bar, the bleed of a bar stool, and on the wall behind the bar is the large black and white photograph of the three people in the garden.
The landscape color photograph shows the detail of a tablet standing on a small black board. The wall around the tablet is painted black, on the left and right edges of the image the wall is white. A cable leads away from the tablet towards the bottom of the image. A page is open on the tablet, its headline in white on a black background reads "lonely hearts". The font is slightly spidery. In the upper right corner it says "About," and the rest of the screen is filled with sand-colored squares, each with its upper right corner cut off, showing personals in various languages. At the bottom edge of each card is a globe icon on the right and a writing pen icon on the left. lonely-hearts.org, digital platform (2021)
The landscape color photograph shows the white wall on which four light boxes hang. To the left and right at the edge of the image are casually dressed people looking in the direction of the light boxes. The light boxes show black, shadowy silhouettes and are mounted slightly below viewing height. They have wooden frames. The lightbox on the far right is obscured by the person looking at it in the room.
Detail photograph of the wall with the light boxes. The focus is on the shadows of the light boxes, so the exhibition space appears very dark. At the bottom of the image is the baseboard of the room. The lightbox on the far left shows a five people standing in a group casting a shadow to the left. Their silhouettes are partly sharp, partly very blurred. The lightbox next to it shows a seated person with legs spread apart, as well as a standing person who can be seen from behind, looking in the direction of the seated one. On the third lightbox, a small standing person can be seen at the top with their arms crossed and appearing to be smoking. She casts a shadow to the right. The last lightbox in the series shows the back of the head of a person with short hair looking toward a person who is leaning on the right edge with her arm, legs crossed, looking back at the other person. She also casts a shadow to the right. o.T., 4 lightboxes, 50x50cm each (2021)
Close-up of the group of people from the left light box. The right two-thirds of the image are occupied by the five people, whose silhouettes are partly sharp, partly blurred. The white image space has the texture of paper, the black silhouettes seem to emerge from behind. The persons are facing each other, they can all be seen from the front. Their long shadows run to the left edge of the picture. detail
Another detail of the right light box. It shows the back of the head of the person with short hair looking towards a person who is leaning on the right edge with his arm, legs crossed, looking back at the other person. She also casts a shadow to the right. Here, too, the structure of paper is recognizable, the silhouettes are partly sharp, partly blurred. detail
Landscape color photograph of the exhibition space, photographed in the corner with door and the long window. On the right side the wall with the photo wallpaper of the ring protrudes into the picture, the left wall is painted dark purple, in front of it snakes along the carpet in the same color. On this wall, to the right of the door at foot level, is a block of text in white lettering, above which is a small display case at eye level, also painted purple. A very small silver ring is visible behind the glass pane.
Landscape color photograph. The focus is on a person's hands, with the left hand just brushing a ring over the little finger of the right hand. In the background the upper part of the body can be seen blurred up to the chest, the person wears a black short-sleeved top and at the bottom edge of the picture a red legwear can be seen in the crop. The upper left half of the image is taken up by the person's right arm, he is wearing a tattoo with single ornamental lines that extends to the back of his hand. The lower right half of the image is taken up by the left hand. The fingers of the left hand as well as the little finger of the right hand are sharply in focus, the small, silver ring is just brushed over the middle knuckle of the little finger. The top center of the ring is formed by a hand draped over the uncut stone, which is held by another, lower hand. silver ring/raw diamond, digital print (2021) photo: M. Hamann
The landscape color photo is photographed slightly from the left in the corner and shows four people bending over a long, black display case that stands in front of the wall. The people are colorfully and casually dressed, the two on the right appear to be reading to themselves, the two on the left are engaged in conversation. The wall in the background is painted white, the floor is light gray. On the right half of the picture, a poster can be seen in the bleed on the wall, which shows a reclining woman, in front of which stands a Minitel, an old-fashioned computer.
Close-up of a magazine in the display case. It is open and shows text in typescript and few illustrations. The left side is filled with small advertisements in French bordered by black lines. Above the border is an illustration of a long-haired person raising his hand to the side of his mouth and appearing to call out. The right side of the magazine shows an illustration of an envelope with a face indicated on the inside. Below it is text in French and a line with scissors indicates that the bottom half of the page is to be cut off and filled in. Lesbia, archive material, Spinnboden Berlin
Another detail shot of a magazine from the showcase, also black and white. The left page shows a photo of two black women, laughing broadly, looking at the camera. They are in a party mood, wearing short hair, the one on the right a plaid shirt. Below them are classified ads in French, and an ad for a bar called "La Bolée" is also printed. The right side of the magazine shows more ads and a large photo of another black person with dreadlocks spinning in circles while dancing. Lesbia, archive material, Spinnboden Berlin