"Artists confronted with a world where art has become a commodity, have limited time and space to create works responding only to their sensibility and inspiration. The Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains and the Cité internationale des arts offer an increased space and time to work on art that is "carefree", that is, still free and independent of the laws of the art market." - Bénédicte Alliot, Director General of the Cité internationale des arts and Alain Fleischer, director of Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains.
As part of the exhibition Un art en apesanteur, a night projections will take place on Wednesday, March 22, with Lina Laraki, Francisco Rodríguez Teare and Gohar Martirosyan
The programme :
• Lina Laraki
The Last Observer, Super 8 mm Film - 2020 - 11’
Filmed with a digital camera and in Super 8, The Last Observer is set in a time when human life has ended. The film features a plant that recurrently dreams of a "last observer" in a dystopian narrative that aims to reconnect us with our lost affects.
Filmmaker and visual artist Lina Laraki was born in Casablanca in 1991 and studied at Central Saint Martins and Le Fresnoy. She now lives and works in France. Her practice interrogates obscure themes and explores the ambivalence of nature and human experience. Her films have been screened internationally and her latest film Shinigami was awarded the Renato & Christine Casciania Prize (Around Video Art Fair) in France in 2022.
Lina Laraki is the recipient of the programme « Art Explora x Cité internationale des arts ».
• Francisco Rodríguez Teare
Una Luna de Hierro, Video - 2017 - 28’ - Production : Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains. Courtesy Fondation François Schneider.
Una Luna de Hierro (An Iron Moon), which was filmed in Chile and the farthest reaches of Patagonia, reveals yet another human tragedy: forced labour on board trawlers, people requisitioned to fish shrimp and squid for periods far exceeding the legally permitted 5 months at sea.
Artist and filmmaker Francisco Rodríguez Teare was born in Chile in 1989. His practice is based on film, photography and large-scale/expanded types of projection. His work explores the multiplicity of viewpoints, the opacity and intelligibility of violence, the traces left by the dead in the world of the living, the spoken word and the human struggle in countries where violence reigns.
Francisco Rodríguez Teare is in residence through the programme « 2-12 ».
• Gohar Martirosyan
Mush 1, Video - 2020 - 12’
Mush 1 is a film set in a post-human utopia in which all the elements reminiscent of human presence have acquired an autonomous existence of their own. The Mush 1 district where the images were filmed was planned after the earthquake in Gyumri (Armenia) in 1988 and has been abandoned ever since. Today it is a vast ghost town.
Gohar Martirosyan is a Paris-based Armenian filmmaker and digital artist with a background in fine art, performance and installation work. Last year, she completed her film Unlearning as part of Panorama 23 at Le Fresnoy. She is the co-founder and creative director of the Munich-based Gurban Art Platform and Ground Art Fest. Gohar is a permanent resident of Gallery 25 in Gyumri, supported by the Honorary Consul of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Gohar Martirosyan is in residence through the programme « 2-12 ».
The night projections is organised in the framework of the exhibition Un art en apesanteur which is held at the Cité internationale des arts until April 29, 2023.