Perroquet 2013 — Julien Bismuth

Perroquet

La Ferme du Buisson, Paris, France
Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois, Paris, France

2013

Perroquet is a video of an actress (Catherine Mongodin) filmed watching a movie on a television monitor. The monitor is not visible, nor is the film, all one sees are the colors of the image reflected on her face, and the events of the movie reflected in her expressions. The piece can only be shown on a television monitor or flatscreen tv. The movie she is watching is The Wizard of Oz (1939), one of the first full technicolor films, as well as one of the most color saturated films ever made. Catherine Mongodin had not seen the film before the shoot, nor were her reactions in any way scripted.

There is a second work also named Perroquet, produced the same year for the same exhibition, which consists of a television monitor, facing a wall, playing a live television feed without sound, thus coloring the wall with the colors of the film.

“Perroquet” means “parrot” in French. To parrot in English means to mimic or imitate which is an action that requires at least two entities, if not two versions of the same gesture or utterance.

Both works were shown at La Ferme du Buisson, Paris; and Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois, Paris.

Perroquet, 2013
Video
00:46:12
Edition of 3 plus 2 artist’s proof