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24/6/2003

Suspendu

f a projects, London

Guillaume Leblon, Fiorenza Menini, Laurent Montaron
Curated by Caroline Ferreira and Marianne Lanavère

Private view Wednesday 25 June 6.30 - 8.30 pm. Champagne by Pommery


As part of the Made in Paris season f a projects presents Suspendu, an exhibition which brings together photography, video, film and sound work by three emerging French artists: Guillaume Leblon, Fiorenza Menini and Laurent Montaron. While diverse in media and sensibility, the work in the exhibition shares an interest in the hiatus, the perception of a suspension or stretching of time within situations taken from daily life. These artists are among the most exciting of their generation, and this is the first time their work has been shown together in the UK.

Fiorenza Menini’s film “Untitled” records the interval between the fall of the first and second of the Twin Towers on September 11, filmed by chance in 28 minutes of real time from Brooklyn. In a single take the film’s image is gradually obscured by a white mist, until at last it becomes a monochrome, from which emerges an apparent serenity. In opposition to the familiar television images of the disaster, in which time is collapsed, the film seems to stretch the duration of the event.

This suspended state is echoed in Guillaume Leblon’s 16 mm film “April Street”, in which Leblon records the transformation of a peaceful rural landscape into something strange and surreal by the flooding of the river Somme. Half-immersed houses, filmed in a slow tracking shot, suggest a landscape in a state of suspension. The photographic work “Chapelle”, shows furniture carefully stored in an attic, in-between two functions, as if waiting to be used for another purpose. In the photographs of his performance “Temps Libre”, Leblon records his own re-enactment of Yves Klein’s “Saut dans le vide”. In fact of course it is an enactment for the first time – for Leblon, trained by a stuntman, actually made the leap that Klein used photomontage to achieve.

Laurent Montaron’s staged photographs show enigmatic situations open to interpretation. In the diptych “Divertimento”, a projectionist plays cards while rocking on his chair to check the film projection. The two twilight views use visual conventions to suggest a temporal hiatus; boredom, idleness, the passing of time. For the exhibition’s sound work, “Tinnitus”, Montaron cut a vinyl record of analogical synthesized sounds to replicate the humming one hears after a loud music performance. Played in loop in the exhibition space, the record naturally erases itself over time. As in Menini’s New York film, presence is eventually erased, to be overtaken by absence.

Guillaume Leblon, born in 1971 in Lille (France), is based in Brussels. His work includes site-specific installations, films, photographs and sculptures. Following a residency at the Rijksakademie, he has shown widely in the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy, including Massimo de Carlo, Milan, Sonsbeek 9 (Curated by Jan Hoet) and the Merghelynck Museum, Ypres. Fiorenza Menini, born in 1970, is based in Montpellier (France). Her work was recently shown at Le Plateau centre for contemporary art in Paris. Laurent Montaron, born in 1972, is based in Reims (France). Recent solo exhibitions include the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne and the Centre national de la photographie, Paris.

Image: Laurent Montaron
Somniloquie 2002 180 x 230 cm


This exhibition is part of a season of French Photography and Video, 'Made in Paris: Photo/Video' taking place in London in June 2003.
For more information see http://www.institut-francais.org.uk/madeinparis


f a projects 1-2 Bear Gardens London SE1 9ED + 44 20 7928 3228

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