Gesundheit

254 Leonardo Gallery Kym Olsen and Trevor Martin, Gesundheit, performance, running time: 2 hours, 1999. (© Kym Olsen and Trevor Martin. Photo: Kym Olsen.) The turn of a millennium gives us an artificial frame from which to reflect on the successes and failures of our methods of making meaning. How have these methods affected our perceptions of ourselves externally and internally is the general question from which Gesundheit began. It is a distillation of one of many explorations the performers have made with the body as the site for pathology, pleasure , hysteria, pain and transformation. In this case the performers have focused on the center of the body, the belly. The performers are located behind an artificial wall that has peepholes from which to view them. One performer is suspended on the wall, while the other “tortures” the suspended performer’s belly as she attempts to tell a story. Their exposed skin is covered in organic material such as flour, egg and food coloring. Here the belly is used to investigate the dynamics between public/private and pleasure/pain. Formally, the use of a frustrated narrative, absurdity, and fragmentation are used to “paint” an incomplete picture for the viewer. The viewer is unable to see the whole gestural sequence, and the artificiality of the external appearances of the performers works to inhabit the postmodern idea that all history is fabricated. (Kym Olsen, 1 Ames Hill Drive, Springfield, MA 01105, U.S.A. E-mail: . Trevor Martin, 425 W. Roscoe #301, Chicago, IL 60657, U.S.A. E-mail: .) KYM OLSEN AND TREVOR MARTIN: GESUNDHEIT ...