Theatrical Suggestions (after Brouillet), 2007-08
Inkjet-Print on Archival Paper, 33 x 42 cm
In the series *Theatrical Suggestions*, Balogh draws inspiration from the famous oil painting by Pierre-André Brouillet (1857–1914). The painting Une Leçon Clinique à la Salpetrière (1887) depicts the neurologist Jean-Marie Charcot (1825–1893) treating a woman in front of a crowd of colleagues; hypnotized and bent backward, she is held upright by Charcot’s assistants and presented to the crowd in this position.
With his interest in Charcot’s studies of hysterical women, Balogh draws attention to the discourse that links hysteria to theatrical performance. Charcot’s research already documented, through numerous photographs, striking examples of patients who embody the doctor’s diagnosis as if it were a theatrical role, and modern medicine also asserts that the pattern of the disorder occurs predominantly in the presence of another person. It is therefore no coincidence that hysterical interaction is stylized into the archetype of a classic power relationship between man and woman, which, upon closer inspection, is in a sense reversed. Famous actors and actresses studied these positions on site at the Salpêtrière, and with reference to Charcot, the Surrealists even celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of hysteria with relish in 1928.
Through his own theatrical proposals, Balogh explores a form of interaction that is itself considered the very epitome of the theatrical. He does not emphasize psychological deviance, but rather the theatrical moment of letting oneself fall, which leaves the designated catcher no choice but to catch whatever comes his way. As in hysterical interaction, the falling woman presents herself as defenseless, exposed, soft, almost transparent, and at times even lascivious. The seemingly innocuous flirtation of the “hysterical woman” inevitably confronts the catcher with the question of what to do with this enraptured femininity that suddenly surrenders itself to him. The Catcher’s gaze upon the Falling Woman’s face, illuminated by light, is always staged as protective and caring. Balogh’s Catchers are proud Catchers and yet, at the same time, prisoners of their own protective instinct. Even in the unspectacular backyard, these moments of weakness take on such a stage-worthy symbolic significance that the viewer must first situate themselves in relation to it.
Pascal Kaegi, 2008
