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Contre–mémoires


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Contre–mémoires

exhibition at Médiathèque
15 April - 07 May 2016

opening 14 April, 6 pm

with films by Mareike Bernien / Kerstin Schroedinger, Gilles Lepore / Maciej Madracki / Michal Madracki, Chris Marker, Bernard Meister, Elio Petri, Catarina Simão and an installation by Christine Lemke












 

By moving Richard II into a modest apartment as a substitute for a royal suite and replacing the monarch’s body with that of a frail amateur actor – a barman in a Geneva luxury hotel – who speaks with a strong accent, La lettre du roi (Bernard Meister, 1982) lampoons the sovereign with satirical, subversive force. Mocking the dignity of kings, deriding their pomp and even the pathos of their deaths, this parody shatters the injunction (formulated in the text by William Shakespeare which serves as the film’s source) to gather round and listen to the story the powerful tell about themselves, to form a community enthralled by accounts of their setbacks and their splendors – a community held captive by the story of their power and their domination.

The final program in the Unfinished histories – histoires en devenir series at the Médiathèque heeds this incitement to break the grip of such stories, of this hegemonic version of history. In an age when history becomes more and more mediatised, when monopoly media are becoming the repositories and guarantors of individual and collective memory, thus exercising control over it, the works presented reflect on the logic and the force of transmission of the accounts given. They solicit close readings, uncover traces and patterns, face up to the veil of the visible. They undertake an archaeology of gesture, digging through the strata of images. They redirect the gaze towards a new state of attention. They give substance to counter-memories that are capable not only of opposing the official versions of history, but also of questioning the regime of truth that regulates them and the authority of the history in which this regime exercises its power. By shaping new narratives and visibilities, are these artists not contributing to the search for other histories, to manifesting other historical temporalities ?


curated by Maria Iorio and Raphaël Cuomo



credits
stills from
La lettre du roi (Bernanrd Meister, 1982)
; Ipotesi sulla morte di Pinelli (Elio Petri, 1970); Die Verschwörung der Augen (Christine Lemke, 2011); Rainbow’s Gravity (Mareike Bernien / Kerstin Schroedinger, 2014)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



credits
stills from
La lettre du roi (Bernanrd Meister, 1982); Ipotesi sulla morte di Pinelli (Elio Petri, 1970); Die Verschwörung der Augen (Christine Lemke, 2011); Rainbow’s Gravity (Mareike Bernien / Kerstin Schroedinger, 2014)