The Dance of the Flâneuses

The Dance of the Flâneuses (La danse des flâneuses), 2007, consists of a large central mural with photographic panels, two individual vanitas (Baroque still lifes) and a diptych. The characters in the main piece cohabit a theatrical setting of lights and shadows in a panoramic view that constitutes an internal system of exchange of glances. The reference to dance in the title dynamically connotes the main characters’ visible quietude. In the vanitas accompanying the series, the artist alludes to the close links between photography and death—in its attempt of rematerialize the immaterial—, and seems to question the ancient pictorial system based on the academic order of themes that consecrated human motifs over representations of objects. Finally, the diptych, which displays a double portrait of Ansareo next to artist Manu Arregui, is the perfect synthesis of the subject-reflection duality, a constituent of photographic portraiture.