VINKENBORG Marnix/ Martin MALIBU

To continue our journey to Querencia, the artist Marnix Vinkenborg invites you to meet with his alter-ego Martin Malibu. In the context of the exhibition, the performer takes the role of a fictive yet very loving singer and explores a new form of performing. Through the theatrical mediums of staging himself and acting, Malibu’s space allows the alter-ego’s reality to partly be revealed. Martin Malibu's quest to find perfect love is a continuous desire. Yet, he realizes that ideal love is delusional if we expect it to be external to us. Perhaps the perfect love is inside oneself, but how to find it then? « The Gate to your Heart » is a manifest of self-love and self-care. Through a manifesto, the setting allows the visitors to imagine and refigure themselves in this dream journey to self-love. With his absurdism, Vinkenborg creates a satyric reality, where his alter-ego desires can collide with the secret desire projections of the viewers. The fictive romance articulates an invitation to entrust your broken heart and grab Malibu's warm and comforting hands. Progressively, the narrative directs the audience into an intimate fantasy. The pace is the one of a serenading song. The text is as the background lyrics sung by Malibu’s voice. The desires of the alter-ego character projected throughout the virtual space, shape an experience for the viewer. Its projections shape a collective artefact born out of the desire to reach true self-love. However, this dream situation ends abruptly, literally cutting us out of the escape from the fantasy. Society standards and agency start to regain the surface and reshape reality, as we exit « The Gate to your Heart » Through this, Malibu’s Querencia found echoes through the viewer's memories.

Interview

Can you introduce yourself?

My name is Martin Malibu (/artist persona of Marnix Vinkenborg). I work with different art disciplines like performance theater, photography and text, although music is usually my starting point. In various roles I collaborated with different artists and disciplines.

How would you describe your practice?

My practice is like being a director of a larger than life theater performance in which I everyone throws crumbs of their life or interpretation. Strong personalities within art inspire me. As if life can be the work of art, in which you can put elements that come together and communicate with each other.

What does desire mean to you?

Desire in itself can get in the way enormously because it can be self-destructive for me. For example in relationships when I long for someone else, or wanting to drink in stressful situations.It can also lead to good things for me: Martin Malibu started out as the desire to be someone else then my old self. Marnix is a melancholic boy who spends all day doubting, and Martin stands for himself and his work. I desire him, but also need him.

To what extent does desire determine the way a person behaves and navigates the world?

The first Martin Malibu movie, called Lidia, was inspired by a girl I was in love with. Of course this girl is also called Lidia, just like in the film. In the film I try to win her back, because I was convinced that she the “true love”. Unconsciously I was in search of myself and not of a true love. Because of this I only push Lidia further away from me and get closer to myself.

Why did you choose to present this work in this exhibition?

Martin Malibu became a kind of metaphysical phenomenon to me, so I'm curious about what the relationship between Martin and the new exhibition will be. How will others respond to it?

Does such a space exist for you?

Two years later, having made Martin Malibu films, writings, performances and music, this initial space of desire has taken on more depth. Martin is a kind of magic mirror in which I can see myself, precisely because he sometimes uncompromisingly follows the desires I always had.

Can you describe what it is?

Compare it to an absurd novel. I don't know what page it's on or what language it's written. I don’t know if it has a happy ending, or if I'll make it to the end at all. What I do know is that it's something I've said yes to—like Sysyphus lifting the rock up the mountain, having it roll down again and again, yet always keeping at it. That to me is exactly what it is: I follow this path purely because I said I would follow it, even though I don’t know where it will lead.