Associação Cultural Videobrasil

French Presence in Videobrasil

Celebrating the 20 years of a structure such as that of Videobrasil International Electronic Art Festival is — having reached a certain point — to direct one’s gaze to feel the traversed route, as well as to verify the state of things. The theme in this 14th edition is the intention note, the statement of inducing a debate of ideas that shake, do and undo our world in this beginning of a new millennium. The artists, as well as the philosophers, the scientists, the political men or the ordinary citizens, aggrandize this debate, and the diversity of their trajectories and origins is the guarantee that this occurs. I was asked to do a very particular selection: the choice to re-encounter some French artists who were present in the editions of Festival: a sort of state of places, a confirmation, by means of their latest productions, of the vivacity and evolution of ideas and forms. In 20 years, it is necessary to admit that a large number of these artists “disappeared” from the contemporary video scene. The video certainly became a trivial tool in the media palette available to the contemporary artist. The artists who I finally selected not only inscribed their names in the video art history in France, but all of them share also a permanent and renewed inclination for a form of experimentation, a bit of risk as a state which guide them in a constant search, whether artistic, aesthetic, philosophical or political. Therefore, it is not a surprise to re-encounter an “inapprehensible” artist like Robert Cahen. In his latest work, “L’Étreinte”, he proves more than ever to be the magnificent “sculptor of time” who we already know, using an almost abstract image to deal with the essential themes — love, death and pleasure. These themes find an extension in the video by Jean-Louis Le Tacon, which manages to make our eyes touch the erotic sensuality in the form of image, images of bodies, or still in the new experiences carried out by Alain Bourges in “Pamela”, a show of images and improvised music. There is also music to be seen in “Staber Mater”, by Christian Barani, which evokes a moving painting. In the form of a blinking, the presence of a great poet — and great cook —, Michaël Gaumnitz, the virtuoso of the graphic palette, offer us a grandmother’s recipe to taste. Jean-Paul Fargier could not be out of this selection, this man who says, does, predicts and shows everything in the video; he retakes for us his artist’s camera (from now on he will devote most of his time to films on art). At last, Jérôme Lefdup, whose extremely rich and varied production makes that he seems a long-time Méliès’ heir. Above all, he is a tireless globe-trotter, a traveler in the world of moving images, one of those who did not give up the idea that television can be a space of creation, and who proves it. Since I presented a new generation of French video artists in the last edition of Videobrasil, it would be unthinkable to finish this program without hailing the new generations with Valérie Pavia, a fine and disarmed gaze, and Pascal Lievre, the saving provocation.

ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURAL VIDEOBRASIL, "Displacements - 14th International Eletronic Art Festival": 22nd September to 19th October 2003, pp. 272, São Paulo, Brazil, 2003.