Situated at the intersection of art and fashion, “Radical Acts of Unrelenting Beauty” is a site-specific, three-act performance featuring Jordan Roth, staged amidst the historic setting of the Musée du Louvre’s Cour Marly.
Titled Red, Act I finds the artist surrounded by four marble dress forms, atop which rest projectors screening a multi-dimensional image of a John Galliano Dior haute couture dress onto Roth. Fading from legible dress to a bath of pure white light, the projection transforms Roth into a radiant object, with a chromatic beam subsequently following the artist as he processes through the Cour Marly.
Act II, titled Wings, features Roth situated at the center of the courtyard, flanked by the equestrian sculptures. Monumental fabric wings rise from Roth’s torso, while the artist articulates the dynamics of flight with his body. Projected onto the wings are images selected by the artist of winged objects from the Louvre’s vast collection, surveying varied representations of wings throughout art history, with notable reference to the famed Winged Victory of Samothrace, the iconic Hellenistic sculpture which graces the top of the Louvre’s Daru staircase. Whether from marble sculpture or oil painting, the collected images are sequenced and animated onto the fluttering surface of Roth’s wings, contextualizing all within his form.
The third and final act, titled Pyramid, is a reflection on I.M. Pei’s iconic 1989 architectural intervention at the Louvre. The culmination of the performance cycle, Roth rises to the heavens in a pyramidal-shaped dress, creating a silhouette around him like that of Pei’s famous glass forms. A projection documenting a full day’s cycle of the sun viewed from within the Pei pyramid lights up Roth’s sculptural gown, accelerating and collapsing time all at once.
