Duration: 6:30 min
Edition: 3/4 + 1AP
Archival: DVD
Exhibition copy: mp4 digital file
Signed Certificate of Authenticity
Provenance: Galerie Chez Valentin
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“The idea is to construct a floating viewpoint, thereby creating a discrepancy in relation to reality. We move from one viewpoint to another, and that's also how we manufacture states of consciousness.”
Les Oiseaux is one of Laurent Grasso’s most well-known video works. True to its name, Les Oiseaux features a flock of starlings moving against the beautiful, dusk-pink sky of the Vatican in Rome. Like many of his other videos, Les Oiseaux features an ambient soundtrack, devoid of any defined sound. The effervescent flock diverges and reconvenes in an amorphous, changing murmur, creating organic, graphic shapes and moving much faster in the film than would occur in real life. Most of the flock appears far from camera, but occasional portions swoop into a much closer viewing range, further enlivening the viewing experience. This play on perception and natural phenomena is an inherent part of Grasso’s practice and recurs in a broadly thematic way throughout much of his film work. Reviews of this film liken the migratory bird patterns to particles in a magnetic wave field – a similarity surely implied by the artist.