89 seconds at Alcázar

source: we-make-money-not-art

89 Seconds at Alcázar, a work by The Rufus Corporation + Eve Sussman, might look at first sight as almost cinematographic but it refers to other artistic disciplines such as performance, photography and painting. 89 Seconds at Alcázar is almost as haunting as the artworks it takes its inspiration from: Diego Velasquez’s seventeenth-century masterpiece, Las Meninas.

Velasquez’s painting is one of the most studied and discussed in the history of art. He shakes up the traditional rules of the pictorial architecture by placing King Philip IV of Spain and Queen Mariana both “outside” the painting as observers of the scene and “inside” the space through their reflection in the back wall mirror. Besides, he became one of the first painters known to address his own identity as artist by portraying himself in the act of painting the canvas.

In the ten-minute high definition video 89 seconds at Alcázar, the court of Spain is animated. Its protagonists murmur and whisper in each other’s ears, they move in a slow choreography across the space to finally take up their position in the painting. But unlike in the original artwork, the scene is envisioned from Velasquez’ perspective.

The fact that the protagonists in baroque wardrobe do not look very Spanish is a bit uncanny. That detail left aside, the instant frozen in time by Velasquez’s brush is brought back to life true to its original objective: to capture a scene in the everyday life of the royal family.