Courir Niemeyer, 2013 |
Color video, silent, 3 min
Tripoli, Lebanon
Production : Suspended Spaces ; La Criée, Centre d'art contemporain, Rennes
Collection : BPS22, Musée d'art de la Province du Hainaut, Charleroi
"In the video Courir Niemeyer, I am seen running on the site of the International Fair Rachid Karame of the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, in Tripoli, Lebanon, built between 1968 and 1974. This site of nearly 70 hectares, symbol of modernism and a past golden age, remained unfinished because of the war. We visited this architectural complex during the Lebanese stage of the research of the Suspended Spaces collective. Artist friends, Marcel Dinahet, Maïder Fortuné and Nesrine Khodr, scattered all over the site, try to film me as soon as I pass in front of their camera or cell phone. In a montage of the different video sequences recovered, the architectural ensemble is gradually revealed. My body here is indeed an instrument that perhaps allows me to take the measure of the place, while becoming the instrument that shows this place.Since a few years, I practice running and this activity feeds my work in various ways. In this video, running is a simple and at the same time very physical choice of action. I wear my everyday clothes, so this running could appear as a spontaneous gesture."
Tripoli, Lebanon
Production : Suspended Spaces ; La Criée, Centre d'art contemporain, Rennes
Collection : BPS22, Musée d'art de la Province du Hainaut, Charleroi
"In the video Courir Niemeyer, I am seen running on the site of the International Fair Rachid Karame of the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, in Tripoli, Lebanon, built between 1968 and 1974. This site of nearly 70 hectares, symbol of modernism and a past golden age, remained unfinished because of the war. We visited this architectural complex during the Lebanese stage of the research of the Suspended Spaces collective. Artist friends, Marcel Dinahet, Maïder Fortuné and Nesrine Khodr, scattered all over the site, try to film me as soon as I pass in front of their camera or cell phone. In a montage of the different video sequences recovered, the architectural ensemble is gradually revealed. My body here is indeed an instrument that perhaps allows me to take the measure of the place, while becoming the instrument that shows this place.Since a few years, I practice running and this activity feeds my work in various ways. In this video, running is a simple and at the same time very physical choice of action. I wear my everyday clothes, so this running could appear as a spontaneous gesture."
| — From an interview with Barbara Formis in Suspended Spaces #3, Inachever la Modernité, Editions ENSBA Paris, 2015 |
