The exhibition he presents today weaves a connection between his various works, created over a period of several years, with a common thread that reveals an obsession: the theme of the “parasite”. Like a parable of the artist’s position within society. Literally, one who lives “at the expense of someone, something”.
In the series Incontrรดlables, a crouching woman, caught urinating, blends into a rocky mountain landscape, she “parasites” the striking image of a nature too real to be true.
In the series “Jโaime la peinture” (I Love Painting), the felt-tip reproductions of 19th-century erotic paintings are almost faithful except that, from painting to painting, a recurring character returns: that of the artist.
In the series “Comment faire une ลuvre avec la notoriรฉtรฉ des autres” (How to Make a Work with the Fame of Others), Florent Mattei poses alongside well-known figures from a world that is less known (the art world) and “parasites” their fame to ensure his own, an attempt that is guessed to be completely vain.
In “Nobody”, a series of 40 photographic self-portraits, the artist’s tightly framed face remains impassive, but he wears 40 different hats, from the Russian chapka to the Ricard bob, which end up “parasitizing” his identity, reducing it to nothing.
These photos, these drawings, unfold around one of his latest works, “Le TOP 48, la Compilโ Mattei”: a 2-hour 45-minute video shot in a fixed shot in his Paris living room where he dances, barefoot and shirtless, to the rhythms of the music that, from Tino Rossi to Philippe Katerine, rocked his childhood, his adolescence, his adult life, himself.
Stephen Lume.
THE PARASITE / Florent Mattei
November 10 โ December 8, 2006
+ on the faรงade: caroline bach
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“En attendant la chute” F. Mattei 2006
