Parodie

The exhibition is structured around nine videos by international contemporary artists who illustrate the theme of parody. Common tendencies respond around the same sense of derision. Thus, through burlesque imitation, whimsical parody or social satire, these videos emphasize the misappropriation of academic works or the outrageous counterfeiting of the entertainment society.

The entertainment industry appears as a source of inspiration for some of these artists. They appropriate audiovisual genres and divert their content.

The humorous argument and the second degree prevail in these works which try to target the world of the audiovisual (Carles Congost, Christoph Draeger, Martin Sastre, Nathalie Talec), the American dream (Laurent Vicente), the industry of tourism (Alexia Turlin), the world of art (Yan Duyvendak, Guy Richards Smit) or the adventures of the couple (Mireille Loup).

In addition, each of these videos conveys a critical thought that goes beyond the first comical or ironic scope.

Thus, in The Last News, realized in collaboration with Reynolds and Breslin, the Swiss artist Christoph Draeger puts in scene the artist Guy Richards Smit in presenter of the television program " 24h disaster & survival news channel " for the MSNBC. In this television sequence, we witness the end of the world broadcast live, the host being overwhelmed by the event. In an overkill of the sensational and the spectacular, the artist tries, by pushing to the extreme, to stigmatize a drift of the media.

Martin Sastre, a young Uruguayan artist, works essentially around the entertainment industry, through references to the American film culture or the musical culture of teenagers. In Masturbated virgin: The video and Masturbated virgin: The game, he presents, in the form of a trailer, the pop icon Britney Spears, as the heroine of an American film and a video game. In these two creations, he challenges the concept of the media image of the artist as an object of consumption, manufactured from scratch by the American Majors.

The Spanish artist Carles Congost appropriates, in his video Tonight's thenight, the genre of the soap opera, associating it with elements of B horror movies. He refers to the stereotypes proper to these two minor genres and incorporates aberrations and absurdities.

Elements of the sitcom are reused by French artist Nathalie Talec. Her video is the trailer for a musical sitcom, Play Back, which the artist started in 2000. The first opus is based on the creation of a fiction inspired by two cinematographic genres, the musical and the science fiction, and on two scenario models, the sentimental comedy and the philosophical tragedy. The inspiration of the songs is to be found in contemporary art, the texts being built on the principle of the quotation of works, titles of exhibitions, subjective descriptions of works.

Art is also at the center of the series Keep it Fun for Yourself by the artist Yan Duyvendak.
A capella, he interprets popular songs that discuss art. By playing on the very constructions of these songs (rhythms, tempos, breaths) in a presentation without decorum (white background, naked torso) he questions the role of the artist, not without irony.

It is also question of the artistic environment in the video of the American Guy Richards Smit Stand up: in defense of painting. In this one, he slips into the skin of his alter ego Jonathan Grossmalerman, a painter by trade, to tell the audience about the most sordid underbelly of the art world in a tragic and merciless parody of a cabaret one-man show.

In many of the videos of French artist Laurent Vicente, we find the culture of skateboarding, more developed in the United States than in France. In Archiskate, he uses his hand as a projection of himself performing skateboard tricks. In a stroll through New York, in front of the Guggenheim or on top of the skyscrapers, he mocks the myth of the American superhero.

Alexia Turlin, a young French video artist, in Petite introduction au Costa Rica comments on a tourist brochure. The stereotypical images of the country (sumptuous beaches, water sports, four-star hotels...) and the neutral description she gives of these images could present an indeterminate destination. Her video, despite the light treatment of the subject, refers to an industrialization of tourism that is less concerned with the particularities of a country than with selling a dream.

In her trilogy Henri I, II, III, Mireille Loup, a young French artist, puts herself on stage, in the form of sketches, in the shoes of different women, each one addressing her partner and discussing the state of their relationship. Her video is divided into three parts: the declaration of love, the daily life of the couple and their break-up. In a humorous treatment, which does not avoid the caricature, she castigates the various failings of the couple.

Curated by Marie Magnier

Thanks for their collaboration

The artists, Galeria Luis Adelantado (Valencia), Galerie Anne de Villepoix (Paris), Roebling Hall (Brooklyn)