BILBAO.- The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents the exhibition Jesse Jones: Tremble Tremble as part of the 2019 programming of the Film & Video gallery, a space where the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents referential works of video art and video installation, and explores the moving image as a key artistic language of our time.
This is an ambitious installation by the artist Jesse Jones (Dublin, 1978) which weaves together film, sculpture, live actions, and sound. The core of the work shows images of a female giantess witch embodying female power and the power of supernatural forces on two giant video screens. This figure proclaims a new legal order, called In U tera G igantae , based on the shamanic power of women, invalidating any other law or government.
Tremble Tremble was originally created in 2017 for the Irish pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale and reflects a time of intense debates on the abortion law in Ireland. At the same time, the work functions as a portrait of a timeless archetype beyond national or ethnic identification. The powerful witch in the video, played by the Irish actress Olwen Fouéré, can therefore be perceived as a disruptive feminist paradigm which has the potential to transform reality and reveals witchcraft to be an emancipating tool for women. Jesse Jones has thoroughly researched the ritual practices and mythologies associated with witchcraft by gathering testimonials in different settings and European countries with the goal of exploring the relationship between feminism and capitalism and the possibility of female power in the world. “I’ve been thinking about what was the context in which women’s bodies have been controlled by the state, and it was very important to see that in the context of the history of the prosecution of the witches.”
The installation Tremble Tremble also includes a live performance component which occurs simultaneously with the video screening in the exhibition space: every so often, an assistant spreads out a curtain across the room and draws a circle on a black wall. The work is completed with three sculptures and a series of items displayed in glass cabinets in the anteroom of the exhibition which serve as key references within the artist’s project.
Jesse Jones has specifically adapted her work to different institutions in Europe and Asia, bearing in mind the ethnography of each place. For the presentation in Bilbao, Jones inquired into the history and rites of witchcraft in the Basque Country, with special attention to the traditional candle of the dead or argizaiola, which is still used in some villages. Along with the theoretician and researcher Silvia Federici, Jones travelled around to some of the historical sites, caves, archives, and museums in the Basque Country and Navarra and learned the history of the Holy Inquisition’s witch hunts in northern Spain. Thus, some of the items displayed in the cabinets reveal the constant presence of esoteric rites and practices in Gipuzkoa and Navarra, providing a new backdrop to the installation as a whole.
Born in Dublin in 1978, Jesse Jones’s works combine film or video with sound, sculpture, and performance in an effort to explore topics such as the relationship between feminism and capitalism, the autonomy of women’s bodies, and the possibility of female power in the world.
In addition to her representation at the Irish Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, Jesse Jones has also exhibited different versions of Tremble Tremble in Europe and Asia, including the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh; the Institute of Contemporary Arts, LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore; and the Project Arts Centre of Dublin. The artist’s works have been the subject of individual exhibitions in such prominent institutions as Artangel, London; The Hugh Lane, Dublin; Artsonje Centre, Seoul; Londonberry and Spike Island, Bristol.
