Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla — Hope Hippo, Apotome, 3 — Chantal Crousel Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: September 13 → October 16, 2013

The two new films by Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla are co-produced with the Festival d¹Automne à Paris.

Apotomē takes Hans and Parkie as a starting point, two elephants brought to the Museum national d’Histoire naturelle as war trophies in 1798. Allora and Calzadilla’s investigations made them discover that the same year a concert was performed at the Jardin des Plantes for the elephants exclusively, in order to scientifically test the effects of music on elephants. They got the concert with the same pieces reperformed by Tim Storms —­ the man with the lowest voice in the world —­ singing before the skeletons of the elephants conserved at the Museum. His voice has a frequency that only elephants can hear.

The film 3 is inspired by the famous Venus of Lespugue, sculpted in mammoth ivory. In response to the geometrical and abstract composition a cello-player performs the prehistoric object musically, using the proportions of the Venus as a music score.

The performance Hope Hippo, presented at the Venice Biennale of 2005, is also reactivated in the Grande Galerie de l’Evolution at the Museum national d¹Histoire naturelle.