AGNES
VARDA / TEPMS TRITURES
Exhibition
at LVMH
MOET-Hennessy-Louis
Vuitton
326
Avenue Louise -
Blue
Tower 1050 Bruxelles
curated
by Elena Sorokina
Celebrated
for her distinctive, complex and poetic films since the 1960s,
Agnes Varda has also been a prolific artist. Her compelling art
projects often explore a wide range of formal and thematic concerns
already present in her films. Blends of fiction and documentary,
collage of success and failure, solitude and happiness, resonate in a
novel way in Varda's photo and video installations, as well as her
photographic series.
The
present display includes recent projects by Agnes Varda and proudly
presents the new work created especially for the exhibition. Entitled
"Temps Triturés", this multi-screen installation is based
on several fragments from Varda's films. These fragments bring
together different locations and times - from the 1960s through the
2000s and from the rural French landscapes to the beaches of Los
Angeles. They originate from the iconic "Cleo from 5 to 7"
(1962) and "Le Bonheur" (1965), the very personal
"Documenteur" (1981) and the acclaimed "Les Glaneurs
et La Glaneuse" (2000). "Vagabounde" (1985) completes
the installation through a series of photographic stills.
From
each of these films, Varda selected a short fragment which suspends
for a while the time-flow of the respective sequence, cuts the
narration and stops the continuation of the story. For the spectator,
suspension
of time becomes the suspension of senses, a reflective moment
transposed from Varda's films to the space of art.
The actual time of the installation thus becomes - as suggested in
the title - "trituré". This French word has multiple
meanings, relating to both cinema, and visual arts. It can signify
"shredded", "cut in pieces", like in a montage.
It can equally describe a sculptural gesture - "to press",
or "to model". In the installation, Varda plays with all of
these possible readings. She shreds and re-models the time of her
images through the suddenly accelerated succession of stills, or a
slow motion, locating them between "moving image" - like
in cinema, and "still image" - like in photography. Using
the conceptual and expressive potentialities of these fragments,
Varda creates in her new work a fascinating variation on cinematic
time.
Curatorial
text by Elena Sorokina
