A New History — L’art contemporain inspiré de l’histoire

Exhibition

Drawing, film, lithography / engraving, photography...

A New History
L’art contemporain inspiré de l’histoire

Past: December 9, 2011 → January 14, 2012

Grey Area Multiples presents a new show of editions bringing together several works that take some aspect of history as their starting point. The show is about an unstable past and ways of reworking it. It is about untruths and nostalgia, and above all it is about making a new history.

Guy Allott plays with the theme of history in several ways. His work revisits 2 phases of the past and at the same time points to themes of the future. He continues his trademark investigations into space travel in a series of new woodblock prints. A pair of blank faced but endearing robots add a cheery twist to what would be the mundane task of transmitting information from a lunar surface. They call to mind boyhood fantasies, sci-fi B movies and TV shows like ‘Lost in Space’ that presented tales of a future which never materialised. The future now looks quite different. In another pair of works he returns to a much more savage past. Etchings of wild animals fighting to the death or a trained bear up on its hind legs come surely from another era, they do, but not the era we imagine. These works are in fact inspired by French 18th and 19th century refined antiques emblazoned with images of a more brutal, misanthropist past.

Katie Goodwin makes the thematic transition from pre-civilisation of wild animals to a version of the present (shot in the more recent past). Through her fascinating involvement with the Stanley Kubrick archive and the story of a single ‘found frame’ from the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the film in which the entire course of history is tracked from animal savagery to French baroque furniture and fine china. The frame in question was destined to be used as a special effects shot in the Stargate sequence but never made it into the final film. Kubrick usually destroyed all unused footage from his films but this one frame survived and so this image gives a glimpse at what was and what could have been. Goodwin’s work presents an actual size print of this piece of celuloid which serves as an emblem for her time working in the Kubrick archive and as a memento mori for an historic and historical film. It represents her history working with the ultimate film about our history.

Alfred.T.Palmer was a photographer who produced work that is simply cinematic. His work serves as an unreliable document of the United States’ involvement in the second world war. The photos were taken in 1942 and yet are in vivid colour. They formed part of the United States home effort to promote and popularise the actions of the government, behind the scenes workers, pilots and marines preparing to go to battle in Europe. The entire series was taken using kodachrome transparency film that was, at the time, a completely new technology in colour photography. All rugged and tough yet vainly posing for the camera; these photos could have come from a recent fashion shoot, in fact they are history (all be it a rather idealised one).

  • Opening Thursday, December 8, 2011 7 PM → 10 PM
Grey Area Multiples Gallery
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Atelier 14
14, rue Abel

75012 Paris

T. 06 50 42 09 83

www.greyarea.eu

Gare de Lyon

Opening hours

Thursday – Saturday, noon – 7 PM
Other times by appointment

Admission fee

Free entrance

The artists

  • Guy Allott
  • Katie Goodwin
  • Alfred T. Palmer