Passage denied, the struggle between the desire for expression and the apparel that keeps it down moves into the realm of the portrait in Inmolation for the Sake of Beauty (2015). In this forty-second silent video, we see in striking close up the artist, her face and body wrapped in white neoprene, on a background of creased reflexive polyester. Her body becomes a passive surface that withstands the advance and weight of diamonds, glass beads, crystals, and a necklace of giant wooden pellets. The image is gradually saturated. A proliferation that starts out fairly serene and meek—small golden butterflies alight on the artist’s lips—becomes more and more frenetic in pace and uncanny. Like the hedgehog (erizo) in the story of that name by Marco Denevi published in 1970 from which this work draws inspiration, Surel’s face is unmoving support turned into victim at the hand of the imperative of beauty. She is murdered by the clamor of glamour. Produced with a GoPro camera and cell phone, with post-production once again by Madelaine Emery, the video was the center of the installation of which it formed part. In the continuum of tones between the polyester’s silver and white, the plaster and flour sprinkled on the floor gave the image and its environment texture, shimmers, and like materialities. These elements not only duplicated on the level of the senses the images projected, but also translated into sculptural language the gravitational and kinetic effect of the ornament, its lavishness but also its burden. In the middle of the gallery was an iron chandelier three meters in diameter of the sort. Found in large Miami hotels of the fifties. The chandelier was also salvages from a junkyard and painted matte white, with incrusted flowers and porcelain hands. Connected to an engine, it spun like a carrousel during the exhibition. Lined up on the wall were stills taken from the video. The show included as well a sculpture with hints of the making-of the audiovisual piece like clips and frames, the costume inside out, a cast of the cap the artist wears in the video, and details of the materials used.

Bárbara Golubicki