Video, silent

29′03

The Deluge is an experimental video made in 2010 with a high definition camera. It is an evolution from an ongoing series of photographed still lifes and from an earlier video, called Still, from 2005. A classical still life composition is presented on the screen. The objects respect the forms and symbols of 17^th century Dutch painting. They are carefully placed and composed to suggest, as is the case for Vanitas paintings of that period, a form of “disorder in order”, overturned glasses and bowls, spilled fruit as if a meal had been suddenly interrupted. Its strong composition and iconography suggests painting more than photography or video. Slowly, a line of water appears, as it becomes evident that the space is being flooded. The video was shot at 48 images/second then slowed down to 24 in order to obtain a meditative and unreal feel. As the water slowly rises, objects are knocked over, the candle goes out, the wafers float away, the tablecloth billows… toward the end, gusts of invisible water and darkening light bring a more foreboding feel. What was a still image becomes a moving one, but also the composed and false disorder becomes real and hazardous due to the natural reactions of the liquid, although more or less controlled by the artist. The whole film is made to be meditative and slow, which is in ironic contradiction with the title evoking the violent biblical flood.

My work revolves around several ideas, the idea of the artist as a creator being one regular theme.

The idea of destruction through creation is often suggested in my work. This work was originally conceived as an experiment with images, the inclusion of water as a destructive element being a sort of equivalent to the solvents used to destroy photographs during the 2008 Wexford performance. Hence as a human creator the artist composes, then applies a system that transforms (in this sense the relevance of the term “destruction” can be questioned) what was originally fixed. This transformation can be partially controlled, but the essential part due to chance is inevitable. Hence, in Vertical Archives (project for Wexford), images were destroyed by solvents, the coloured result being uncontrollable. The same goes for other works were pictures were taken according to a rule, but the result (in framing, in subject … ) was also more or less out of control.

Although based essentially on artistic ideas, The Deluge is an act of contemplation and of questioning. The biblical title ironically recalls the idea of a creator/destructor, the violence of the mythical event being subdued here by the slow-motion photography and the contemplative aspect of the work. Water is a source of fascination : its invisibility in the end makes the objects float as if without gravity, making elegant forms in the tablecloth’s folds, spinning the lemon away. But this pleasant vision is opposed to the idea of disappearance and force of destruction the title, as well as the Vanitas theme of the still life, suggest. As a modern form of vanitas -a theme frequent in contemporary art since the last years- the video suggests that what we have around us is fragile, ephemeral, that disappearance is inevitable. Water is here a tool, a symbol and a warning.

]]> http://www.danielclauzier.com/installations/the-delugele-deluge?lang=en/feed&lang=en http://www.danielclauzier.com/installations/attribution-2009attribution-2009?lang=en http://www.danielclauzier.com/installations/attribution-2009attribution-2009?lang=en#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 23:57:00 +0000 admin http://www.danielclauzier.com/?p=452 6 self-portraits done directly with a mirror. A play on portraiture and painting.

The picture of a victor’s cup, with different attributes, is deformed into a pyramid to be seen only from a precise viewing angle above. The prize is thus actually the anamorphosis of a prize, an illusion which is as much a photograph as it is a sculpture.

Digital colour print on medium board

Prix, 2009

three versions (black background, red background, ornate background)

Prix II, 2010

two versions (black background, red background)

approx. 22 x 12 x 12 cm each.

(private collections)

100×80 cm

(coll. Musée Matheysin, la Mure)

Video, 12′21”

variable size

24 b/w pictures (13×19 cm digital prints), 8 b/w pictures (10×15 cm digital prints, double exposures), painted frames, stickers, glass.

Variable dimensions