2019, multi-media installation, various sizes
PDF doc.
The installation is composed around the three tables at the three sections of the exhibition
space. Each table holds a thread of the initial archival materials used for the production of the
final video essay My Frenchness @ the Third Table. The tables are marked by letters:
a. (Dissection)
b. (Recasting)
c. (Confession)
2019, HD video, color, sound, 26'10''
PDF doc.
The video essay - My Frenchness @ The Third Table - opens with the municipality officials issuing the new identity documents at the improvised location in the occupied Netherlands. Some of the captured persons are gazing at the camera. This scene is now dissected and extended to reconnect with a 'confessional' voice-over of a contemporary artist in the identity crisis.
online video: https://vimeo.com/351446404
password: confession
This video is a sketch for the long-term research that teases following issues:
- collaboration and resistance issues during occupation by a foreign power
- confused class position of 'modern' art producer (after Rilke's Notebooks)
- deregulated flex work &.political life (after Hannah Arendt)
- dynamics between model & artist / actor & film director in relation to art history
Sources:
Thierry Baudet, Liberated from any Destination, 2018
Walter Benjamin, Arcades Project, work-in-progress, 1940
Julia Kristeva, 'The Example of France' in Hannah Arendt, 1999
Jean-Luc Godard, Passion, 1982
Rembrandt van Rijn, The Sampling Officials, 1662
Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, 1910