A year after his exhibition “The Edge of the Worlds” presenting the oeuvre of his “capillary-sculptures,” the French cult hairdresser Charlie Le Mindu returns to Palais de Tokyo with a brand new revue. Premiered last evening, “Charliewood” was performed alongside his past shows, “Paris Hait Grey” (2014/2015) and “A Male Gaze” (2015/2016).Charlie Le Mindu pioneered the fusion of coiffure and couture using hair as thread for his seamless creations. He is known for his dresses and head pieces sculpted with real and synthetic hair worn by pop icon Lady Gaga, electro-punk musician Peaches, actress Rossy de Palma, and dancers of Philip Decouflé’s and François Chaignaud’s performances. However, many still question whether he is a hairstylist, a milliner, a couturier, an artisan, or a sculptor.French choreographer Philip Decouflé coined the term Le Mindu likes the best: “coiffurist.” Using hair as his main material he metamorphosizes the wearer; his sleight-of-hand amalgamates the world of fashion, performance art, music, video and installation, operated with his virtuosic skills of hairdressing, sewing, sculpting and directing, drawing inspiration from ancient mythology, fantastical bestiaries and most importantly, his very own transgressive imagination.Blouin Artinfo met with Charlie Le Mindu and Palais de Tokyo curators, Vittoria Matarrese and Julien Fronsacq.“I describe myself as a gypsy because I’m not attached to any world: I prefer creating my own one,” Charlie said. Julien Fronsacq explained that “Charliewood” takes its name from “Dollywood,” the theme park created by country music singer Dolly Parton in Tennessee in 2001; “it is both a place and a show; it’s an environment where unexpected things occur and the audience is led by Le Mindu’s surrealistic creatures.”The audience enters through a mouth-like entrance into the world of Charlie Le Mindu - an allusion to the hell-mouth entrance of the iconic facade of Cabaret de L’Enfer; located on 53 Boulevard de Clichy in Pigalle, the Paris’ red light district, it lured 19th century Parisians until it was destroyed in the 1950s. Descending the spiral staircase, you get a view of the stage from above. Upon reaching Level 0, you wander around and discover unexpected tableaux vivants in hidden places, behind round, red-lit windows or dark corners. “Charlie worked a lot with the Parisian cabaret Crazy Horse but we wanted to approach his work from a contemporary visual art perspective; to deconstruct the idea of cabaret and to change his working patterns, taking under consideration Palais de Tokyo’s audience and space.”Vittoria Matarrese explained further that they deconstructed the space in order to deconstruct the body of the performers and to provide different viewpoints: “The view of the main stage is not quite frontal and it is somewhat uneasy for the audience to find a comfortable viewing zone with so many visual distractions.” That purposeful hard-to-see effect echoes Hans Holbein the Younger’s “The Ambassadors” (1533) where a skull renders in anamorphic perspective.Charlie Le Mindu managed, yet again, to visually puzzle the audience by demonstrating his rich visual imagination, amplifying his models’ femininity and distorting their figures clad in transparent veils, prosthetic masks, elaborate headpieces or plexiglass limbs illuminated in the dark with flashing lights. Each tableaux vivant interrupted by Olivier Simola’s stunning video projections. Covering the performers’ bodies with either silver glitter body paint or body suits made of hair extensions, they were transfigured, escaping human appearance.The opening scene of “ Charliewood” cast fragmented body parts - organs formed by human bodies such as a nose, ear, lips, and mustache, slowly dismantling and denoting a kind of disarrangement of the senses. His otherworldly, profoundly uncanny anthropomorphic creatures engaged acts of excess, seductively moving on Orion Bouvier’s electronic tunes. “I still choreograph my own shows, in collaboration with the dancers, but my dream is to work with Michael Clark one day - I love what he does!”Hair fetishism has many dimensions. Most notably, artist Leonora Carrington famously went into the rooms of her guests at night to cut off a chunk of their hair and served them hair omelettes in the morning. Although his work may seem shocking to some, Charlie Le Mindu said that his intention is not to shock but to arouse curiosity, to convey emotion, to stimulate and to even cause some laughter - like the bawdy hybrid of burlesque.“At times spooky, at times compulsive, you either love it or hate it,” Le Mindu added. Vittoria Matarrese emphasized that the work is very cinematographic, its dark atmosphere reminiscent of Tim Burton’s universe. And so, what’s next for Charlie Le Mindu? “Perhaps an opera,” Julien Fronsacq replied.Charlie Le Mindu’s “Charliewood” runs at Palais de Tokyo until April 8, 2016.Charlie Le Mindu’s recently published coffee table book Haute Coiffure is available also in a special limited edition that comes with a bobbed wig and a Le Mindu-branded condom.
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