Video
Musée Géo-Charles, 1 rue Géo-Charles, Echirolles.
open daily (except Tuesday), 10:00–18:00
free entrance
Ingeborg Lüscher
2 - 28 February 2005
Born 1936. Lives and works in Tegna, Switzerland.
Using forms as diverse as performance, installation and photography, the artist
explores the points of encounter between matter and emotion.
Made in 2001 in the stadium at Winterthur, Fusion is her second video
(the first, Fly Fly, was presented at the Venice Biennale in 1999).
It features two Swiss football teams, the Zurich Grasshoppers and F.C. Saint
Gall, specially kitted out for the occasion in grey and blue suits. The commentary,
describing the actions of these “blue” and “grey” teams
is interrupted now again by inset images and music (Mozart). The work thus sets
up a parallel between the worlds of sport and business, as referenced by the
suits.
Fusion, 2001, 13’40
courtesy Videocompany, Zofingen and the artist
Stephen Dean
2 - 31 March 2005
Born in 1968. Lives and works in New York and Paris.
Stephen Dean films the terraces of Brazil’s Maracana stadium during football
matches. Instead of individuals or identities, however, all we can make out are
the movements of coloured masses. The crowd unfolds and folds huge flags and
pennants in the colours of their team, and the artist transforms these into a
giant painting.
In all his work, Dean strives to find the painterly touch that will change our
perception of everyday objects.
Volta, 2002-2003, 9’
courtesy Galerie Xippas, Paris, and the artist
Magnus Wallin
1st – 30 April 2005
Born in 1965. Lives and works in Malmö.
Since 1997, Magnus Wallin has been making 3D animation films that combine the
aesthetics of cartoons and video games. Human bodies move around in unreal landscape
and monumental structures evoke totalitarian architecture and the Middle Ages.
At the centre of this work is the human body, in perfect, idealised form. Wallin
uses it as an analytic element, a machine for interpreting the world. “My
aim in the film Anatomic Flop is to give visual form to questions about
the image of the normal body in Western culture. The conception of normality
has created an utopian image of a rational ideal. From a historical point of
view, it is clear that the way we perceive the body has changed, moving it from
subject to object.”
Anatomic Flop, 2003-2004, 2’38
courtesy Nordenhake gallery Berlin & Stockholm and the artist
Cameron Jamie
2 – 30 May 2005
Born in 1969. Lives and works in Los Angeles and Paris.
Cameron Jamie uses video, performance, sculpture and drawing. He is particularly
interested in American culture and history, and in showing its dysfunction. One
aspect of his work involves analysing social rituals. In BB, Jamie presents
young kids from the suburbs of Los Angeles training at wrestling. The artist
spent a year working with teenagers to make this film.
BB, 2000, 18’24 (sound track: The Melvins)
collection Pierre Huber, Geneva, courtesy Art & Public, Geneva
Lars Siltberg
1st - 30 June 2005
Born in 1968. Lives and works in Stockholm.
Lars Siltberg is presenting three videos of a man dressed in a jumpsuit with
balloons tied to his hands and feet, struggling and just about managing to keep
his balance. Each action takes place in a different environment: Man on Ice (1998),
is the first film in the series, which he continued through to 2001. Siltberg
uses a fixed camera and, in a single take, presents the action indicating the
solidity of ice. In contrast, the two other films are shot from a variety of
angles in order to reproduce the malleability of air and water. The three states
of matter (solidity, fluidity and vapour) are used by the artist to question
nature’s relation to technology. These videos were presented at the 2001
Venice Biennale Plateau of Humankind exhibition.
Man on Ice, 1998, 7’54
Man on Water 2000, 6’35
Man on Air, 2001, 6’05
courtesy Milliken Gallery Stockholm and the artist
Salla Tykkä
1st - 30 September 2005
Born in 1973 in Helsinki where she lives and works.
Salla Tykkä’s work
is based on her own life and the experience of being a woman. Her intimate
life is held up against more general themes such as identity, sexuality, perfection.
She questions power relationships in the social and political spheres in her
photographs and videos, often showing teenagers in situations that are at once
banal and mysterious.
Power features two people who box; a young
topless woman confronting a huge man. The black and white images and the sound
refer to the harshness of real life. Power is a manifesto against power
relations in society but can be symbolically viewed as a combat for survival.
Power,
1999, 3’58’’
Courtesy FRAC Haute-Normandie, Sotteville-lès-Rouen
Aaron Schmidt
1st - 31 October
Born in 1978 in Ottawa, Ontario. Lives and works in Clayton, Ontario
Aaron Schmidt examines masculine identity as formatted by social codes. His practice,
made up of photographs and video installations, is based on his own experience
as a man, and fueled by his interest in both theoretical and artistic feminist
movements. The artist films himself in performances that take place in generic
spaces, chosen for their vagueness. The spectator can interpret them in different
ways. They become the framework for a reflection on notions of the private, the
public, domesticity interacting with the Other, the group.
Untitled shows two men engaged in an action where each grabs the other in a way that is both aggressive and impassioned. Their fight, set up in a repetitive mode, is never-ending and refuses any coherent narrative strategy.
Untitled, 2003, 2’50’’
Courtesy the artist
Miltos MANETAS
2 - 30 November
Born in 1964 in Athens
Miltos Manetas began his career by making photographs and videos before turning to figurative painting. He uses oil painting in reference to Old Masters and paints technological objects (cables, laptop computers, video games, etc) as icons of contemporary society. These computer-related objects reveal his fascination for new technologies, games, leisure activities. This visual universe attempts to translate our relationship to an abstract virtual world that the artist theorizes in his texts celebrating cyber space.
The artist also films his gaming sessions. In Flames, derived from the game Tomb Raider, the female character (Lara) enters into a cave. Arrows that fly out of the walls kill her. I can’t go on takes on the video game aesthetic and displays a man and a woman who box. The man, driven back to the edge of the ring repeats, “I can’t go on”.
I can’t go on, 2000
Courtesy the artist