Two exhibitions
dal 20/10/2008 al 5/12/2008
Segnalato da
20/10/2008
Two exhibitions
Yvon Lambert, Paris
Glenn Ligon belongs to a generation of artists who came to prominence in the late 1980s on the strength of conceptually based paintings and phototext works. For this exhibition - Erased James Franco - Carter has created all new works including two 16 mm films, sculptures and paintings.
Glenn Ligon - Figure / Paysage / Marine
Yvon Lambert is pleased to announce the second
personnal exhibition of American artist Glenn
Ligon at the gallery. From October 21st through
December 6th, the artist will present various
works, including two new large installations.
The first installation, Everything must go, consists of a neon presented in a window. The piece
evokes the noisy and seductive catch phrases of consumption society. Echoing this first piece,
the second installation is entitled Tout doit disparaître. Made out of Parisian cobblestones, it
recalls the events of May 68 when students used those stones as weapons against the police,
while fighting for social liberation. Through this installation, the artist aims to set his reflection in
the context of the French society which is hosting his exhibition.
Accompanying these two pieces, Glenn Ligon will present a series of 50 unique silkscreens. Each
of these Figure is a selfportrait of the artist: his head is represented from the front or from the
back, showing and hiding the artist identity.
Glenn Ligon belongs to a generation of artists who came to prominence in the late 1980s on the
strength of conceptually based paintings and phototext works. They investigate the social,
linguistic, and political constructions of races, gender and sexuality. Informed by his experiences
as an African American and as a gay man living in the United States, his art is a sustained
meditation on issues of quotation, the presence of the past in the present, and the representation
of self in relation to culture and history. It incorporates sources as diverse as James Baldwin’s
literary texts, Martin Luther King’s speeches, and Richard Pryor’s stand-up comedy routines.
The
development of ideas around artmaking is central to his aspirations as an artist, both as the
conceptual underpinning for his art and as a critique of the society in which we live.
Glenn Ligon (born in 1960) has exhibited in numerous institutions around the world. Lately, the
exhibition Some Changes presented a large retrospective of his work, it travelled from the Power
Plant Contemporary Art Gallery of Toronto in 2005, to the Houston Contemporary Arts Museum,
the Andy Warhol Museum of Pittsburgh in 2006, the Wexner Center for the Arts in Colombus and
the Mudam, Musée d’Art Moderne de Luxembourg, in 2007.
...............................
Carter to exhibit Erased James Franco
Yvon Lambert Paris is pleased to announce its
first solo exhibition of American artist Carter.
The exhibition will take place from October 21st
through December 6th. For this exhibition Carter
has created all new works including two 16 mm
films, sculptures and paintings. The exhibition
will open on October 21st with a reception for the
artist from 6 to 9pm.
Carter (born 1970) has exhibited at the Royal
Academy of Arts in London as part of the
exhibition USA Today, White Columns in New
York and the University of Illinois in Chicago.
He was also selected for the 2006 Whitney
Biennial Day For Night and was chosen by
curator Matthew Higgs for inclusion in the
exhibition Dereconstruction at Barbara
Gladstone in New York.
Constant (James Franco as inanimate object) is a 16 mm color film with two sequence shots. The
first shot is of a leg, almost an exact replica of American artist Robert Gober’s leg sculptures,
while the second shows American actor James Franco (famous for his roles in such films as
James Dean, Pineapple Express and the Spider-Man franchise) lying on the floor with what
appears to be an amputated leg. These two shots represent one scene separated by a wall. A great
admirer of Gober, it is the artist’s response to wondering what might be happening on the other
side of a "wall". Accompanying the films are leg sculptures that the artist has made from casts
created directly from Franco’s legs.
Erased James Franco is a 65 minute color film made at Yvon Lambert Paris in July 2008. For
the film Carter approached Franco about reenacting scenes from previous films in his oeuvre but
to revisit these scenes with restraint. At no point is Franco given the opportunity to delve deeply
into any one character. Instead Carter directs Franco to use a flat voice and limit his instinctual
movement during the filming of each scene. Carter describes his direction as “artificially relaxed
- to withhold James' natural ability to act …” which gives the film a muted quality.
Together the artist and actor constructed a performance that had more levels than simple mimetic
acting, enhanced by the idea that scenes were performed one after the other, often in the same
take. This succession of characters leaves the viewer with a sense of oncoming schizophrenia.
During the filming Franco is reliving multiple past identities, something that the actor describes
in later interviews as giving him real ownership over those characters. To further deepen the
performance Carter directs Franco to play the role of actress Julianne Moore in the Todd Haynes
film, Safe and as the closeted, gay actor Rock Hudson in his roll from the 1966 film Seconds.
Both films have been described as psychological dramas whose themes are erasure and loss of
identity.
Image: Carter
Opening reception on October 21th
Yvon Lambert
108 rue vieille du Temple - Paris
Free admission