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4/4/2007

Bernadette Genee et Alain Le Borgne

Palais de Tokyo, Paris

Unites elementaires

Since 1993, Bernadette Genée and Alain Le Borgne have been working in direct contact with professional contexts that appear far removed from the world of art. The exchanges they have established with the worlds of the circus, the textile industry, agricultural shows or even the Vatican have resulted in a varied artistic output (installations, objects, photographs, videos, sound works, performances, tableaux vivants, books, or exhibitions).

In 1998 the artists became interested in the codes and customs practised in military circles. Over the course of several years, they established numerous relationships with people in the Army, in the Foreign Legion, or with pensioners at the Hôtel National des Invalides, and gradually became intimately connected to these communities and their many stories, objects and memories. Through their production of documents, installations and images, the artists create representations of ambivalent status, both real and symbolic.

At the Palais de Tokyo, Genée and Le Borgne’s relationship with the military manifests itself in three separate exhibition spaces. In the central space, a large Unité de Traitement de Linge en Campagne (UTLC – Countryside Laundry Unit), installed on-site by the Army’s own information and communication service, raises the question of its meaning in relation to the art objects shown elsewhere at the Palais de Tokyo. Although this bulky outdoor equipment is part of the Army’s logistical materiel, it shares with art the act of working on the image, with the job of maintaining the individual’s functions of elementary representation to himself and to his social group.

Couvre-chefs [Headgear] (2007), a new set of seventy photographs of upside-down kepis or military caps, is presented in the second space. The personal effects of the servicemen that are hidden there reveal private choices and activate a personal identity within a collective unit. The images function like small theatrical moments, and seen together, they appear as thought-bubbles suspended above their heads forming an invisible and intimate military procession.

The third space presents a number of military films, and videos made by the artists. Aubade [Dawn Serenade] (2000), Sortilèges [Magic Spells] (2001) and Je crèche derrière le musée [I hang out behind the museum] (2002), feature men from the Foreign Legion singing songs, reciting their poems, or making Christmas crèches. Shown simultaneously is a programme of films from the archives of the ECPAD (Etablissement de Communication et de Production Audiovisuelle de la Défense – Defence Ministry Audiovisual Communication and Production Office) selected by the artists, showing servicemen carrying out parallel activities far removed from combat. Occupations that reveal the culture and the life of these men, in the margin of wars, appearing at odds with what we imagine as being their usual missions. On the evening of the official opening, a group of Foreign Legion soldiers sing a capella marching songs at the Palais de Tokyo.

Partners: Ministry of Defence, Etat Major de l’Armée de Terre EMAT (Army General Staff), Commandement de la Légion Etrangère COMLE (Foreign Legion High Command), Etablissement de Communication et de Production Audiovisuelle de la Défense ECPAD (Defence Ministry Audiovisual Communication and Production Office).

Opening april 5, 2007

Palais de Tokyo
13, avenue du President Wilson - Paris

stampa

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