Gisèle Vienne’s Political Puppetry

In his essay compilation Silence (1961), John Cage questions whether time lapses between sounds should be considered silences. Even if we were surrounded by complete silence, he argues, the sound of our nervous system or blood circulation would be heard. There is, instead, a consensus around what is deemed worth listening to and what exists within and outside of a musical intention. If we transcend silence as solely a sonic phenomenon, the concept can also carry political implications in relation to subtle systems of violence, endorsing oppression, complicity or censorship.

Sleek and serial, Gisèle Vienne’s arsenal of crafted teenage dolls lies inert inside glass vitrines displayed along Haus am Waldsee’s main hall. Part of her installation Dolls in glass boxes (2003–21), these life-sized figures – eyes wide open, heads turned to one side – resemble corpses. Their gloomy configuration hints at a distressed response to an out-of-shot calamity. In their radical stillness, they evoke anything but silence, emanating instead a tacit scream prompted by some unrevealed horror. Vienne uses this voicelessness to develop a discourse around violence, positioning teenage bodies as archetypes of innocence whose developing political opinions encounter social expectations and influences beyond parental control.

The delicate human replicas in ‘This Causes Consciousness to Fracture – A Puppet Play’ reflect various subcultures in appearance: from the spiked wristbands and skull iconography of black-metal fashion to the pleated skirts, white socks and Mary Jane shoes of the preppy aesthetic. The exaggerated garments and makeup suggest an imitation game often interiorized by teenagers as an outlet for their effervescent angst. Upstairs, the eerie sense of witnessing the aftermath of a brutal event prevails. Filling the room, I Apologize (2004–17) features a set of empty crates, in which the dolls were likely transported. Covered in red stains, they recall empty bloodied caskets. In the surrounding rooms, organized on the walls in grids, are photographs from the series ‘63 PORTRAITS 2003–2024’ (2003–24), which depict dolls in individual close-ups. Their eyes gaze forward into the distance or are cast down, projecting undisclosed sadness or shame.

Vienne is ultimately a choreographer, narrating with bodies even when they are static objects. According to the exhibition booklet, she considers her wooden teens to be ‘actors in a play’. Their (non)movement is purposefully orchestrated – whether in front of the camera or within the gallery space – to shock and horrify the audience. Her settings leverage the power of images, even as replicas, to stir emotions with staggering immediacy in the popular imagination.

The artist's mordant puppetry is deliberate: she turns her figures into idols, toys or mannequins, akin to uncaptioned images that might fit any storyline. In their purposeful universality, they could equally be martyrs of direct conflict, like war, or of more insidious torment, such as social inequality and systematic oppression. The dolls ultimately reflect our own lack of agency, revealing our position as complacent puppets within the social organizations of a decomposing system.

Whether Vienne’s figures allude to the vicious attacks on children in Gaza and Lebanon, the countless victims of American school shootings or a freak-off afterparty at Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s mansion is less relevant than the awareness of how depictions of horrors in wide circulation lead to a frightening normalization. We have commodified violence into spectacle, turning the ones who have the guts to look – but can do nothing to relieve the suffering – into voyeurs. By replicating objects of violence in her silent plays without addressing specific contexts or perpetrators, Vienne tasks the viewer with assigning meaning and reflecting on collective perception.

Gisèle Vienne’s ‘This Causes Consciousness to Fracture – A Puppet Play’ is on view at the Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, until 12 January 2025

_{Main image: Gisèle Vienne, ‘This Causes Consciousness to Fracture – A Puppet Play’, 2024, installation view. Courtesy: the artist and Haus am Waldsee; photograph: Frank Sperling}