JOUER AVEC DES CHOSES MORTES (PLAYING WITH DEAD THINGS)
2003

Solo show, Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers
Curator : François Piron

Jouer avec des choses mortes (Playing with dead things) offers a physical and temporal experience that improbably combines the aesthetics of TV game shows, minimal sculpture, and the sets and elements of kindergarten and amusement park. It takes the form of a artwork-exhibition in which the viewer wanders through a semi-darkened environment where objects often out of scale – a giant sausage, garden fences, an iceberg, bags, a desk, flower beds – are theatrically illuminated. On a suspended screen, a film is projected showing five characters methodically manipulating each sculpture, in a deliberate indeterminacy between pantomime, burlesque, childish games and dance. The film offers the viewer, who recognizes the objects present in the space, a disturbed relationship to temporality: something has happened, or could happen. The simultaneous presence of the same sculptures in the exhibition space (the Real) and in the film (the Imaginary) creates a dichotomy between these two spaces, reinforcing the contrast between the mortifying aspect of the object displays and the Dionysian aspect of the film.