the Flaneur: A l´Exterieur - Rites de Passage

After presenting the dandy, the dilettante and the collector, Marres is now presenting the flâneur, a further feature of a study of 19th-century positions and their traces in contemporary cultural debate.

This project is the result of a collaboration between fashion theorist and publicist José Teunissen and Eric de Kuyper, a novelist, director and theorist. Their vision of the flâneur resulted in a selection of film fragments and texts that conjure up a picture of that intriguing figure that emerged in 19th-century Paris, discovered the city and was astounded by the changes and the modernisation of public spaces and the urban landscape.

Following this, artists André van Bergen and Michiel Kluiters built an installation for these texts and film fragments which is, at the same time, an autonomous intervention in Marres’ historical interior. The circuit they have mapped out through Marres goes up the spiral staircase and ends in the attic, connecting the ground floor to ‘The Lobby’, a permanent installation also built by Kluiters and Van Bergen (2006). In here, the borders between public and private spaces are once again questioned. Hence, this exhibition is not only part of a broader programme, it also forms a physical connection with previous projects at Marres.

The flâneur is one of the most intriguing figures of the 19th century. Although the flâneur should also be regarded as a dandy, compared to the literary figure of Des Esseintes – perhaps the ultimate dandy – in Huysmans’ ‘Against the Grain’ who retires into a perfected interior, the flâneur sees the public domain as the place where he can manifest himself. He gives himself over to the spectacle of the first shop windows, department stores, galleries and fashions. But this dandy also contemplates the act of sauntering itself.

What is it exactly? To see and be seen in public? To do something whilst not doing anything? Something that raises the everyday to the level of a spectacle? Or should we see it as a semi-conscious mental state that leads to inspiration, new ideas and novel experiences?

Alongside the flâneur there is, of course, the flâneuse, though her appearance about town is not a matter of course. In the 19th century, a woman on her own in public was soon seen as a woman of easy virtue. The advent of shops and promenades changed that and more often, she, too, was permitted to showcase herself out in the open. It was decades later before Virginia Woolf became one of the first women to describe her experiences as ‘flâneuse’ in London.

The installation by Kluiters and Van Bergen has its own reality but it will play on two senses in particular. Texts written by various 19th and 20th-century writers and flâneurs describing how they experienced Paris, New York, London, Berlin and The Hague will be installed in separate rooms that will appeal exclusively to our sense of hearing. The Lobby, a permanent installation in Marres’ loft, is set aside for seeing, nourished by countless film fragments that paint a picture of the sauntering flâneur.

the Flaneur:
A l´Exterieur - Rites de Passage
Kuratoren: Eric de Kuyper, Jose Teunissen
Installation: Michiel Kluiters, Andre van Bergen