스킵네비게이션

Born 1981 in France

Lives in Paris

Louise HERVÉ & Clovis MAILLET, Or If I Swim in the Sea, Does the Sea Swim in Me?, 2020, 

Installation, Haenyeo Goggles, fossils, glass floats, marin glass sculptures (Liquidum), judo mats, variable dimensions

Courtesy Marcelle Alix Gallery Paris

The artistic practice of Louise HERVÉ & Clovis MAILLET centers on the act of narration. Based in Paris, and they have developed an enigmatic way of working over the last two decades. Their stories bring together historical facts, fictions, and new realities, and take the form of films, installations, sound, photographs, and performances. Their mode of operation combines scientific, historic, and anthropologic discourses with personal comments and can be described as “archaeology of knowledge.” They deal with historical reconstruction, both as a personal practice (they have worked with people and associations reenacting historical events) and as an institutional practice in museums. Their project Spectacles without Objects (2014-16), which includes a film, book, and vinyl record, is an example of how the artists use historical facts as a point of departure. The record consists of two different sets of songs with a choir specializing in 18^th and 19^th century music. The first series is composed of four songs written at the dawn of the French Revolution, in 1790, by anonymous songwriters to commemorate the first large Fête révolutionnaire (“revolutionary fair”). The second series is composed of five Saint-Simonian songs, which were destined to accompany every hour of the day and every activity inside this political Saint-Simonian community during the time of their retreat in 1830. Spectacles without Objects represents the duo’s historical approach, while The Waterway (2014) deals with fiction and new realities. This pseudoscientific film is set in a holiday resort on the Atlantic Ocean in France, where a mysterious group of senior citizens tries to find a remedy that will give them eternal life. Louise HERVÉ & Clovis MAILLET constantly balance on the enchanting knife’s edge between the fictional and the historical, and keep their viewers on their toes in a web of speculative information.