Exhibition opening performance: Gwen van den Eijnde »SPIEGELKABINETT«

In his performance »SPIEGELKABINETT« (Mirror Cabinet), which will be shown at the exhibition opening on September 25, 2008 at 8pm in the Weißer Saal of Schloss Solitude, Parisian costume designer Gwen van den Eijnde will lead the audience into a universe of masks and mirrors, in which the borders between being and seeming, between dream and reality are blurred. By means of three costumes he designed at Solitude together with the Württembergisches Staatstheater Stuttgart, Gwen van den Eijnde turns into fantasy beings, which relate to baroque as well as to contemporary forms. The performance is accompanied by compositions by the South Korean sound artist Jae-Ho Youn.

Gwen van den Eijnde (*1981 in Zierikzee/Netherlands) studied in the Visual Arts and Textile Departments of the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg from 2000 until 2005 after having completed one year of study in animated cinema. Currently, van den Eijnde works as an artist and costume designer. His artistic practice focuses on the theme of the invention of self, by making elaborate costumes he designs and eventually wears during performances, as he did for »Cérémonial,« Palais des Fêtes, Strasbourg (2004). He designed costumes for »The History of Communism Told to the Mentally Ill,« Bucharest National Theater (2006), for »Les enfants de l’ilôt« (2006), and »Ziad, Plume et le mur« (2008), two musical fairy tales produced by the Maison des Arts, Thonon-Evian. In 2006 van den Eijnde was awarded a fellowship for the Water Mill Summer Program, Robert Wilson’s Academy for Arts, New York. In 2007 van den Eijnde worked as a costume assistant on Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s circus opera »Monkey Journey to the West« at the Manchester International Festival. He also worked for costume designer Olivier Beriot, as well as for several costume ateliers in Paris. Gwen van den Eijnde is a Solitude fellow in 2008.