Originally published by Cluster, written by Silvia Maglioni & Graeme Thomson

“L’école pour devenir invisible” continues its cacaDehnic year. Following UNIVERSE BACKSTAGE (“The surface of a line and impact without movement”), THE ENCLOSED GARDEN (“Performance based on the symbiosis of figs and their wasps”) and KNOTS AND THEIR OPPOSITE (“Performance-lecture on connecting and colliding”), master-trickster and syntax-evader Jochen Dehn decided to momentarily venture out from his “bétonsalon” residence to lead a misguided LIQUID TOUR OF THE LOUVRE: rendez-vous in front of da Vinci’s La Belle Ferronière, in the Italian painting pavilion.

Dehn is en plein formlessness, deadpan-handler of a fool’s gold alchemy, conjurer of Tanguelyesque suicide machines cobbled together from pseudo-scientific scraps that cave in on themselves almost as soon as they leave his lips yet make just enough sense and children’s TV pragmatism (why not try this at home) to leave you laughing in their ruins while Dehn makes his escape.
Every demonstration or explanation is a half-baked failure (a total failure would be too much of an achievement) as one minute our guide explains why aureoles are always behind the head, no matter which way it is turned, and then suddenly dives under a bench to prove it is hollow or suggests improbable hiding places for those unafraid of asphyxiation who wish to spend a night in the museum close to their favourite paintings. Further enigmas abound as Dehn careers through the galleries in search of small details that may serve to corroborate his theories. But just what are those theories, we wonder, and where are they leading. Even when there remains nothing but its smile, Dehn never lets the cat out of the bag. Just great. If only all visits to the Louvre were like this.

Bétonsalon www.betonsalon.net/spip.php?article74
Jochen Denn www.jochendehn.com