In the
past decade, a new generation of video artists has significantly
impacted the international art world. Often in collaboration,
their work is emblematic of a new way of working—crossing
borders, exploring hybrid forms and blurring the divisions
between subject, author, producer, and artist. Through strategies
of appropriation and dislocation, they maintain an ambiguity
not only with respect to authorship, but also to the geo-political
location of their works.
This program, curated by Christopher Eamon for Chez Bushwick,
features select works by some established French artists
(De Meaux, Gonzalez-Foerster, Parreno and Huyghe) as well
as others who may have been influenced by them. Typically
screened within gallery or museum settings, they are brought
together for a single viewing, making this global phenomenon
apparent.
See detailed program below or download program
brochure.
Charles de Meaux
You Should Be the Next Astronaut
2004, 1 min. Video, color, sound
This work by de Meaux, one of the founders of the Anna Sanders
Films, is a trailer for a non-existent science fiction film.
A parody of the techniques perfected by the entertainment
industry for advertising, de Meaux evokes the hopes and aspirations
of a fictive audience.
Philippe Parreno
The Boy from Mars
2003, 11 min. 35mm transfered to high
definition video, Dolby Digital 5.0 stereo with musical score
by Devendra Banhart, 11:40 minutes
Shot at the location of an artist-designed structure built
for Tiravanijaland, the site of an artists’ residency program
founded by artist Rirkrit Tiravanija in the north of Thailand,
Parreno’s evocative film is an allegory for the notion of
progress. In front of the building, two buffalos pull on
weights, producing electricity for the house, the structure
of which is made of concrete and a synthetic coating resembling
foliage. Finally, the power generated by the buffalos enables
a surprising closing action.
Mircea Cantor
Deeparture
2005, 5 min. (excerpt) Video, color,
sound
This work, which is intended for viewing in installation
format—looped without a clear beginning and end—creates a
tension derived from the coexistence of predator and prey.
For the shoot, Paris-based, Romanian born, Cantor places
a wolf and deer in a gallery together with no escape route.
Shooting from multiple angles and employing long, medium
and close-ups shots, Cantor sensitively foregrounds the relationship
between the two animals.
Anri Sala
Time after Time
2003, 5:22 min. Video, color, sound
A horse on the side of a busy highway at night, sandwiched
between guardrail and the passing traffic, can be seen only
as the headlights approach. The shock of this situation can
be read as a metaphor for the situation of the citizens of
a war-torn country. Albanian artist Sala’s exceptional ability
to find situations such as these, isolate them and capture
them on video, transforms the scene into powerful poetry.
Dominique Gonzalez- Förster
Atomic Park (film version)
2003/4 c. 8:14 min. 35mm film, black & white,
sound
One of series of videos shot in various location around the
world, Atomic Park is one of the most evocative of
Förster’s recent works. Shot on location at White Sands,
New Mexico, very near Trinity Site—the location of the first
atomic explosion, the film captures sunbathers and tourists
taking in the striking sun. On the soundtrack we hear faintly
the voice of Marilyn Monroe and hints of violence from The
Misfits (1961). Partially obscured by a degree of over-exposure, Atomic
Park evokes the contradictory experiences of leisure
and danger. Most often screened in art galleries on video,
the 35mm original will be screened in this program.
Pierre Huyghe
Blanche Neige (Lucie)
1997, 4 min. 35mm film, color, sound
This celebrated film by artist Pierre Huyghe investigates
the issue of identity in both concrete and subtle ways. The
work features the French actress Lucie Dolène who, in the
1960s, was dubbed in as the voice of Walt Disney’s Snow
White and the Seven Dwarves in the French-speaking world.
The French Snow White over the past 50 years Lucie’s identity
has been taken from her in a sense because, although she
gave her voice to Snow White, she received no royalties for
the release of the film on DVD in 1993. In 1996, Dolène sued
Disney Corporation for copyright restitution and won her
case only to find in 2002 that her voice had been replaced
with another’s—a strategy used by the company to avoid paying
future royalties. Most often screened in art galleries on
video, the 35mm original will be screened in this program.
Jean-Gabriel Periot
If She Had Been a Criminal
2006, 10 min. Video, black & white, sound
In his work video artist Jean-Gabriel Periot has taken the
genre of the collage film to new levels. The intricate weaving
of single frames from hours of footage taken from many sources
creates a uniquely sensual and predominately visual sense
of time. The fluidity of his editing afforded by new technologies
belies the terrible images of the treatment of women in Paris
in 1944 believed to have had affairs with German soldiers
during the occupation.
Maïder Fortuné
Totem
2001, 10 min. Video, black & white, sound
Fortune’s work in video and performance almost always involves
her own image. This examination of the image of the self
has roots in the early performance video work of Bruce Nauman,
Vito Acconci , and Abramovic and Ulay to name a few. In Fortuné’s
work and especially in Totem, she often recreates herself
in the persona of young girl in a fairy tale. This video,
which is also part of a 5-channel installation, also examines
the degradation of the image through motion in time-based
media. In it the fairy-tale image of a girl is mutated into
a specter more reminiscent of a surrealist Man Ray photograph. |
