Rehearsal

Peter Mundwiler’s work explores small-scale choreography, furtive gestures, contemporary mythology and street acts which, through repetition or familiarity, become invisible. Rehearsal depicts the repeated rehearsal of an illusion described in Volume 7 of the “Tarbell Course in Magic.” Employing symbols of nostalgia – sepia tones, the silent moving image, vintage clothing – he recalls the history of magic in moving images, specifically the use of editing and camera tricks to accomplish what the magician cannot manage in live performance. Through the repetition of rehearsal, the performance alternates between the practiced and the amateurish, occupying the space between the miraculous and the mundane. In this low-budget, garage rehearsal of a stage trick, the meaninglessness of the act is exposed, yet it still conjures desire for the illusion of the phenomenal.

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