3 May - 6 August 2012

ANRI SALA 3 MAY - 6 AUGUST 2012

The work of Albanianborn artist Anri Watching both Parisian passersby Sala (b. Tirana, 1974) blends image, and the characters in the films, sound, and architecture and is the visitor stands at an interstice, characterized by the subtle but hesitating between fiction and reality. profound exploration of all aspects of In an original take on audio sound. This installation, designed by spatialization, the artist transforms the artist for the Centre Pompidou, the Galerie into a veritable music box takes the form of four recent films that plays a new version of the Clash’s arranged in a onehour loop, various famous punk anthem Should I Stay or sound sources, as well as objects and Should I Go one moment, then a photographs. Together, these items Tchaikovsky symphony or drum beats function as a single work of art, like the next. Doldrums (2008) brings us a symphony. The films bring us to ten snare drums that come diverse locations on the globe: intermittently to life, while No Window Sarajevo during the siege of 19921995 No Cry (Richard Rogers and Renzo (1395 Days without Red, 2011), a Piano, Centre Pompidou, Paris) (2012) geodesic dome in Berlin ( Answer Me, consists of a small music box set into 2008), a deserted banquet hall in one of the windows, which, when Bordeaux ( Le Clash , 2010) and the activated, plays a version of the Clash Aztec site Tlatelolco in Mexico song. The sculpture Title Suspended (Tlatelolco Clash, 2011). (2008), one of the artist’s works in By leaving only one of its walls open, the Centre Pompidou’s Collection, the exhibition plays with the very completes the installation along with space of the Galerie Sud and its two photographs. streetlevel location.

www.centrepompidou.fr MUSIC AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR BEYOND AUDIOVISION LANGUAGE For this exhibition, Anri Sala has put together One of the defining characteristics of Anri Sala’s four of his recent films in an original way, oeuvre is its diminished narration and symbolism, producing twelve sequences projected one after which leaves a blank space onto which the the other on five screens. At times, two films play viewer can project his or her own stories. For on two different screens at once; at others, a film Sala, history provides the background to his projected on one screen continues on another. subject matter, but is never its focus. If there is Thus, none of the films “owns” a single screen a political dimension to his work, it rather stems or architecture, as is the case with a traditionally from what he calls an “intimate, civil resistance.” designed multiscreen projection, but rather each In his latest film, 1395 Days without Red, a woman constitutes one element of a symphony of sound traverses the city of Sarajevo under siege, when and vision. everyone avoided wearing red so that they would The soundtrack to each film is played where it is not become a sniper target. While the war projected, but it is also broadcast over the various provides the backdrop, as subject matter it cedes loudspeakers that populate the exhibition space, to the work’s main focus: the filming of a body turning the Galerie sud into a veritable music that incarnates a musical instrument. Indeed, box. Two further sounds are produced in situ: the humming of the young woman on the move that of the ten snare drums (Doldrums) located finds its corollary in the bassoon of an orchestra throughout the space, and that of the music box playing a Tchaikovsky symphony. set in one of the windows: (No Window No Cry (Richard Rogers et Renzo Piano, Centre Pompidou, Mexico’s celebrated Plaza de las Tres Culturas, Paris). This is the only element of the exhibition the birthplace of the modern Mexican civilization that requires the intervention of the visitor, who and the locus of political unrest that still lives can operate it at will. on in collective memory today, serves as the The sound brings the visitors back to the image frame for the film Tlatlelolco Clash. This was and guides their progression through the the site of the Aztec surrender to Cortes in 1521 exhibition. Through his use of sound that often that marked the beginning of modern Mexican finds its spatialization off screen, Sala refuses history; it was also the site of the army and police the causal relationship between sound and image massacre of 300 students in 1968. Neither of prescribed by cinema. these events is mentioned in the film, in which various characters each bring a part of the score The sound was remixed in and for the exhibition to the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” to space. It couldn’t be further from a cinematic the square, then play it in random order on a soundtrack––here, the music is directly produced barrel organ. The context gives way to the music, in each film: the drums are really played in which becomes a collective work of art subject Answer Me, as are the music box and the barrel to the chance arrival of each participant and the organ in Le Clash, the barrel organ in Tlatelolco varied intensity of their individual gestures. Clash and the symphony concert in 1395 Days without Red. In a way, the films become musical instruments in themselves, generating sound and entering in dialogue with the actual sounds produced in the exhibition space. EXHIBITION MAP

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GALERIE SUD ENTRY

1. 4. Untitled (tagplant 1), 2005 No Window No Cry (Renzo - Answer Me, 2008 - No Window No Cry Black and white photograph Piano and Richard Rogers, HD video projection, Colour, Recordings (Tokyo, Boulogne, on baryte paper on Dibond Centre Pompidou, Paris), 2012 stereo 2.1 Mexico City), 2012 74 x 104 cm Music box, glass, metal 4 min. 51 sec. Stereo sound window frame 60 min. 2. 427 x 178 x 15 cm - Le Clash, 2010 The visitor can operate this HD video projection, Colour, 5 A Untitled (tagplant 2), 2005 work at will. discrete 5.0 - Doldrums, 2008 Black and white photograph 8 min. 31 sec. 10 modified Brady snare on baryte paper on Dibond drums, loudspeakers, drum 74 x 104 cm 5. - Tlatelolco Clash, 2011 stands, drumsticks Extended Play, 2012 HD video projection, Colour, 75 × 56 × 41 cm each 3. HD video installation, discrete 5.0 28 channel sound Title Suspended, 2008 11 min. 49 sec. 60 min. Resin, nitrile rubber, Made up of the four films electric motor - 1395 Days without Red, 2011 listed hereunder (divided into 67 x 110 x 36 cm HD video projection, Colour, 12 sequences projected onto discrete 5.0 five screens), as well as the 43 min. 46 sec. sound piece No Window No Cry In collaboration with Liria Recordings (Tokyo, Boulogne, Bégéja Mexico City) and From a project by the installation Doldrums : Šejla Kameric & Anri Sala in collaboration with Ari Benjamin Meyers. EXHIBITION INFORMATION AROUND CURATOR 01 44 78 12 33 THE EXHIBITION Christine Macel www.centrepompidou.fr GUIDED TOURS Curator at the Musée national In French d’art moderne EXHIBITION OPEN TO THE PUBLIC Every Saturday at 3.30pm Head of the Service création From 3 May to 6 August 2012 € 4.50 / concessions € 3.50 contemporaine et prospective Galerie sud, level 1 (+ Museum & Exhibitions ticket) Assisted by Micha Schischke Every day except Tuesdays from Annual Pass € 3.50 and Anna Hiddelston 11am to 9pm Ticket desks close at 8pm PRODUCTION Ludivine Rousseaux ADMISSION Access with ARCHITECT the ‘Museum & Exhibitions’ ticket Laurence Lebris Valid the same day for one admission to all Exhibition areas, INTERNS Museum and panoramic viewing Naïs Alziary, Matylda Taszycka, point. Léa Wanono €13, concessions €10 Free with the Annual Pass and for CATALOGUE under18s Buying tickets online and print Bilingual (EnglishFrench) at home Texts by Michael Fried, Christine (full price only) Macel, Philippe Parreno and Jessica www.centrepompidou.fr/billetterie Morgan. 160 pages, 53 illustrations TWITTER Price: 34.90 Find information and content on the exhibition via Twitter with With the support of the hashtag #AnriSala, or by Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris going to http://www.twitter.com/ centrepompidou

Text of the leaflet based on Christine Macel’s essay for the exhibition catalogue Anri Sala. L’exposition comme symphonie. Au-delà de l’audiovision.

Graphic design calbum

Printing Friedling Graphique, Rixheim, 2012