Massimo Furlan / Numero23Prod.

Vidéos

Gym Club

A steirischer herbst and Numéro23Prod./Massimo Furlan project (august/septembre 2013)

Gym club is a project that centres on the question of bodybuilding, on the question of a body focused on developing its full potential. The ‘act’ of bodybuilding is seen as a choreography, a sequence of postures the aim of which is aesthetics rather than hand-to-hand combat or the sheer demonstration of brute force. The bodybuilder seeks to develop as many muscles as possible, especially the hidden ones the purpose of which is unclear. His efforts focus on intensifying those muscles, following a technique of constant tension of the muscle throughout a whole motion, which makes for unlikely body movements.
In a fitness centre. In 1966. The night before Arnold Schwarzenegger’s departure from Graz to Munich, where he will start his professional career as a bodybuilder. This is the story of a man who begins a frantic race towards beauty, perfection and power. Like some sort of unbridled dream. In the gym, bodies transmute, muscles become tense, swell up in worrying ways, like monstrous prostheses. Deep down inside, the want to seduce, the quest for “perfection”.
It is a burlesque situation, the imagery grotesque: the scenes evoke a fairground parade, cardboard cut-out sets, freak show presentations, or extravagant fashion shows.
Gym club is a farewell night at the local gym, where the participants make up a small community: they celebrate the departure of a unique personality, a different character, on his way to becoming an international star.