With the installation Les statues meurent aussi, the hidden and forgotten traces of the colonial past are resurfacing.
Traces of the colonial era are omnipresent and can be found in countless forms both in Paris and throughout France. However, most of the time they escape the public's attention. Places of memory and related commemorative plaques are rare.
German artists Jan Mammey, Falk Messerschmidt and Fabian Reimann examined the French colonial past. Based on their experiences and research, and inspired by André Malraux's concept of "Musée Imaginaire", they developed the idea of an immaterial non-place. Their artistic project focuses on the Parisian public space, the capital's museums and institutions, and some little-known public archives.
The central element of the exhibition Les statues meurent aussi is the furniture (display cases, displays, tables, shelves) of the Palais de la Porte Dorée used during the 1931 Colonial Exhibition and now stored in the building's reserves.
This furniture, which was used to present the various cultures and resources of the French colonial empire, will be diverted from its original destination and will serve as projection surfaces for the photographs in the trio's image collection.
Since 2016, the artists have carried out a cartographic inventory of more than a hundred places and collected a collection of more than 2000 photographs. This search for traces is marked by a subjective approach based on associations of ideas. The three artists reveal images and texts that they then assemble in an editorial and curatorial process to create a multifaceted artistic work.
Co-produced with the Goethe-Institut Paris, the exhibition takes its name from a famous short film by Alain Resnais and Chris Marker, which was banned until 1964 for denouncing colonialism.
Falk Messerschmidt (Germany) is in residence at the Cité internationale des arts.