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8/9/2003

Laetitia Benat

Cosmic Galerie, Paris

More particularly known for her video works and photo series, Laetitia BENAT lets us see fragments of her inner world through her works, which are like windows opening onto intimate landscapes. Her series of images are like pictures from a movie pinned at the front door of a movie theatre: stories barely started from which the viewer can imagine his own movie. For her first one person show in France and her first venue in a French gallery, Laetitia BENAT presents her drawing for the first time, which has been transferred to the walls for the occasion.
Her mural designs are the transposition of her sketchbooks into space where the strolling of the viewers replaces the turning of their pages. With their subtle lines, realised freehand, they conserve all the spirit and spontaneity of small scale formats. Sketches of flowers, animals and the female body are echoed; the designs are pure and refined to focus on a few details that are enough to evoke a legible response. These evanescent traces of mental images act like a condensation of Laetitia Benat's imaginative world on walls. The artists thoughts always draw us towards the fantastic, mingled with a feeling of suspended time they create a threatening calmness in her apparently fragile universe.This oscillation between anxiety and serenity is particularly striking in Laetitia BENAT's video works. Nearby, 2000, Halvimar, Blood, 2002, MC/CW, 2000, and Black Sanna, 1998.
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Video works

Nearby
Video, 2000, 20'9''
Nearby, the still, heavy and idealised landscapes that Laetitia BENAT presents us with, become mental landscapes in long shot sequences. She creates a movement between the inside (bedroom, white walls, girls doing nothing) and the outside (landscapes filmed in 16mm).
Although one might associate the inside with confinement, it is actually the outside which becomes oppressive due to the framing and the fixed image, though it's not the artist's decision. This depressive atmosphere evolves slowly, until it becomes threatening. In Nearby the treetops swaying in the wind leave an impression of anxiety. One can not tell what is going to happen; nothing's happening, but the expectation is threatening.

MC/CW
Animation video, 2000, 1'25
Blood
Animation video, 2002, 2'40''
These two films are animated videos. Laetitia BENAT uses a female portrait as a starting point and proceeds to animate it by slowly spreading it with dirt and blood. In MC/WC it is the face of singer Mariah Carey which gradually gets covered with blood like the face of Carrie WHITE, the heroine, as interpreted by Sissy SPACEK, of Brian DE PALMA's film Carrie (1976).

Black Sanna
Video, 2002, 2'40''
Black Sanna is a fantastic story in Black and White showing and making fun of what could be a witches' gathering.

Halvimar
Video, 2002, 22'70''
Halvimar is the continuation of Black Sanna, but could have been the story that happened before it.
Halvimar is a make-believe name which helps to leave the impression of following a character. Laetitia BENAT is trying to find ways to film these bodies which have become shadows. She's showing a love scene: apparently taking place in castle, a young man and a young woman are reading, disembodied, and dressed in animal skins. At the end the only things left are the skins on the terrace of the castle. The young woman seems to be back in the castle after many years to rekindle the memory of her lost beloved. She has to realise that the love she had doesn't exist anymore. The film is full of brutal cuts which re-enforce this harsh reality. The only moments of calmness and continuity are the reading scenes.

Laetitia BENAT was born in 1971 in Vichy, France. She lives and works in Paris. She has had shows at the Villa Arson in Nice, at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, at the Rectangle in Lyon, at the Centre national de la photographie in Paris, at the Centre régional d'art contemporain in Sète, at the Hayward Gallery in London and at Fri Art Kunsthalle in Fribourg. She is a permanent contributor to Purple and collaborates with Claudia CARGNEL since 1995.

Tuesday to Saturday, noon to 7pm
Opening on September 6th, 6pm to 9pm

cosmic galerie
76, rue de Turenne - 75003 Paris - fond de cour

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