2nd VIEW // 'I saw you staring out in space`// SPECIAL PERFORMANCE by Valerie Renay

About

Galerie-P6-Berlin is pleased to present a special event with artist/musician/performer Valerie Renay as part of the the group exhibition, I saw you staring out in space, with artists Christa Joo Hyun D' Angelo, Richard Hancock, Ana Bathe, Liz Rosenfeld, Sadie Weis, and Hannes Ribarits, curated by Sadie Weis, on view from November 18 – January 8, 2023. Renay will perform her interactive performance: Duet for 4 hands and 2 headphones in the exhibition space throughout the duration of the evening alongside all of the participating artists.

The experience with Valerie Renay can be described as a a shared moment of playful surrender. An invitation to explore intimacy and boundaries through sound and skin.
A duet for four hands and two headphones venturing into a voluptuous and soothing unscripted journey. The unique and never to be repeated dance develops by itself, organically, through the uncharted micro landscape of our hands.
Immersed in a lush hypnotic drone, the brief encounter investigates through touch, the creative and emotional space in between. A ludic choreography of desire, trust, fear, and faith.

What can happen when we let our minds wander - excessively or even for a fleeting moment? Gazing into the abyss, our eyes glazed over, where do we go? This 'place' is a phenomenon where we spend 47% of our waking lives.
Another realm of our illusions.
An escape.
Desire, joy and fantasy come slinking through... dopamine kicks in. It causes us to want, to seek out, to search. Neurons start making connections between things we didn’t even see before. In these moments, we blur or close our eyes... and become transported. It is an incantation in which to see our world in another way, albeit through rosy-tinted glasses - a queered gaze, a kind of utopian dream, a post 'something' future, a space we have created for ourselves. A castle in the sky. A place to be free.

There are different motivations for that search, that staring into space. For some, it's a form of pleasure, lust, musing, a creative phantasm. For others, it's a defence mechanism or even a coping response to trauma. Staring, longing, yearning for something... To be touched. To be heard. To be seen. Imagining ourselves somewhere else. Out of a stressful situation. In a different class structure. Out of a marginalized society. A place where we set the standards. It is a psychological tactic to conjure a world, or simply a moment, outside of the one we are in; a shift of perspective. An Arcadia. It is a rare moment when an individual can be the center of the universe and have the capability to twist their own fate – if only in a daydream...

Through multiple artistic positions and queer perspectives in the exhibition: I saw you staring out in space, we experience these curious journeys through the eyes of the artists. Albeit manipulations of the senses, desires, or the free associations of the mind, we are able to experience new planes of existence through the their visions. Are such experiences merely a mirror of ourselves, an alternate reality perhaps, or something more profound?