Masterpiece comes to life as next RUAG exhibit

Masterpiece comes to life as next RUAG exhibit

A lavish and evocative recreation of the moments leading up to and immediately following the scene portrayed in Diego Velásquez’s masterpiece “Las Meninas” (“The Maids of Honor”) will be the next installation at the Rice University Art Gallery.

Photo courtesy of the Rice Art Gallery

Eve Sussman’s “89 Seconds at Alcázar,” which recreates the scene in Diego Velásquez’s “Las Meninas,” opens at the Rice Art Gallery Jan. 20 and will be on display through Feb. 27.

From Jan. 20 to Feb. 27, Rice Gallery will present Eve Sussman’s acclaimed video installation “89 Seconds at Alcázar,” a 12-minute video loop which premiered at the 2004 Whitney Biennial.

Sussman used cutting-edge, high-definition video technology to give her work its rich, nuanced feel. Special equipment loaned by Microsoft Corp. will allow Rice Gallery to present the work in high definition. The opening reception Jan. 20 from 5:30 to
7:30 p.m. will feature remarks by Sussman at 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call Rice Gallery at 713-348-6069 or visit <www.ricegallery.org>.

“89 Seconds at Alcázar” brings Velásquez’s painting to life. Shot in high-definition digital video, a 360-degree steadicam shot reveals the entire scene in the salon of the Alcázar (Palace of the Hapsburgs). Actors play King Philip IV and his wife, Mariana of Austria, their daughter the Princess Margarita, as well as the servants, Valasquez himself, the young prince, a dwarf and a Spanish mastiff. Sussman’s inspiration for the video was her first glimpse of “Las Meninas” at Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, where she was amazed at the snapshot-like quality of the painting, which predates photography by centuries.

“Any gesture, at any point, is interesting,” Sussman said. “You can take any minute and a half from the whole [‘89 Seconds at Alcázar’] piece, and it does the same thing. It’s some moment coming together and falling apart.”

Rather than recreate “Las Meninas,” Sussman used it as a point of departure for improvisation and artistic revision, while staying faithful to the time period in which it was created. Sussman and choreographer Claudia de Serpa Soares collaborated with the actors to invent the action in the room. The piece is fundamentally a fluid choreography — each gesture in the video implies weight and narrative similar to the original gestures Velázquez captured in the painting.

The shooting took place over four days in May 2003 in a garage space in Williamsburg, a neighborhood of Brooklyn, and required a month of set and costume design. Sussman and Rebecca Graves worked on the creation of the setting that accurately captured 17th-century Spain. Their research included studying the 1660 architectural plans of the palace with consulting architect Robert Whalley to recreate accurately the scale of the room in the Alcázar. Costume designer Karen Young’s recreation of the Baroque wardrobe for the 11 actors began with research at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and in the exhibition “Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting” (2003).

Born in London in 1961, Sussman is now an American citizen. She received her bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Bennington College in Vermont in 1984. She also attended the Skowhegan School in Maine in 1989. Recent exhibitions include the “2004 Whitney Biennial,” Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the “Paper Sculpture Show” (2003); SculptureCenter, Long Island City, New York; and “Eyestalk” (2002), Smack Mellon Gallery, Brooklyn. In 2002 Sussman received a production grant from the New York State Council on the Arts Media, and in 2000 she received a Jerome Foundation Grant. She lives and works in Brooklyn, N.Y.