Programmed by Michèle Smith

A falcon equipped with a tiny camera hovers over the desert like a living drone. Auguries are taken from the flight of starlings above the roofs of the Vatican. At ground level, a magician-mime uses conjuring tricks to interpret abstract art, shepherds watch over Glenn Gould practising a Chopin étude, and a prisoner secretly records his daily life on a smuggled phone in exchange for short video clips of the world outside. This month we’re mapping the conceptual terrain crossed by French artists in the past decade, from art and aesthetics to politics, philosophy, race, and citizenship. An irresistible cinematic amuse-bouche and digéstif will be served by Laure Prouvost, whose recent video installation Wantee, about the artistic friendship between her late (entirely fictional) grandfather and the Dadaist Kurt Schwitters, earned her a nomination for this year’s Turner Prize — winner to be announced in early December (Go Laure!).

PROGRAM

Owt | Laure Prouvost/Great Britain 2007. 3 mins. 
Abstract Telling | Olivier Dollinger/France 2010. 16 mins. 
Le Berger | Benoît Maire/France 2011. 15 mins. 
Temps Mort | Mohamed Bourouissa/ France 2009. 18 mins. 
Pruitt Igoe Falls | Cyprien Gaillard/France 2009. 7 mins.
Les Oiseaux | Laurent Grasso/ France 2008. 9 mins. 
A Study of the Nature of Things | Laurent Montaron/France 2011. 12 mins. 
On Air | Laurent Grasso/ France 2009. 9 mins. 
Wantee | Laure Prouvost/Great Britain 2013. 15 mins. 
 

Image: On Air (still), 2009. Courtesy Galerie Valentin, Paris, and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York © Laurent Grasso / ADAGP, Paris, 2013.