EXHIBITION
Sarah Morris
"Endeavor [Los Angeles]"
A
monumental painting in the form of a fictional landscape.
Cliquez ici pour la version Française
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Exhibition from 8 October 2005 to 8 January 2006
Friday 7 october
>
From 10 am to noon:
private opening
> de 8 pm to midnight:
public opening
>>> Download
the Press Kit (400 Kb)
Wall-painting,
Neon Cuba Libra, 2000
Wall-painting, Department of Water and Power, 2004
Los Angeles, 2004, 35 mm / DVD, Duration : 25 minutes
and 5 seconds
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Abstraction reinterpreted
Since the mid-1990s, Morris has deconstructed the architecture of American
cities through her vast abstract geometric pictorial compositions.
In her early pictures, this New York-based American artist focused initially
on the vocabulary and signs that belong to the media and advertising,
before gradually turning toward other signs, those of the city and urban planning.
Morris's art comprises 16 mm films, abstract paintings, works on paper and
posters that explore the urban environment and the integration of man
in a "fictional landscape".
Making the United States her favorite hunting ground, Morris has already turned
out five series of films and paintings on five major American cities, New
York, Las Vegas, Washington (DC), Miami and most recently Los Angeles.
Los Angeles, 2004
35 mm / DVD
Duration : 25 minutes and 5 seconds
© Parallax
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Portrait
of a city throughout its architecture
Taking film as her starting point, Morris has managed through her painting
to disembody the cities that she explores with her camera, removing from them
any and all narrative or figurative content. "Stripped bare," the
American city comes to us filtered through her colors and compositions.
In her series “Initial Midtown” (1998-99) on New York, the artist
renders Manhattan's modernist architecture geometrical, appropriating
it to produce grids that resonate with Mondrian's work. After New York, Morris
launched her conquest of that neon oasis in the desert, Las Vegas, where she
focused particularly on the visual connections between advertising
and architecture. In 2000, she shot "Capital", a film
that captured Clinton's final days at the White House in Washington (DC).
Morris turned the metaphor of urban architecture into a reflection on social,
economic, and political questions.
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A wall painting at the height of the
architectural power of the Palais de Tokyo
For the Palais de Tokyo, the American artist is presenting in Paris a new
monumental wall painting inspired by her Los Angeles series, which she first
began in 2004 with a film by the same name. Los Angeles is above all a film
that deals with Hollywood and its stars, with the city in all
its filmlike aspects. Shooting in 35 mm, the artist has created a portrait
of a town and its actors, the setting, and what goes on behind the scenes.
Los Angeles appears like a long iconoclastic film clip strewn with
celebrities. The music, composed by Liam Gillick, creates a kind of suspended
atmosphere throughout.
Shown at the White Cube in 2004, the paintings “Sony (Los Angeles)”,
“People's Bank (Los Angeles)”, “Capitol (Los Angeles)”,
constitute the artist's initial research into a more abstract work on the
Californian city that is now to take shape in a wall painting at the Palais
de Tokyo. "Endeavor (Los Angeles)" is inspired by the most renowned
talent agency in the city. It is a color panorama that absorbs viewers and
sparks a number of thoughts. How can one create a fictional landscape? What
are the limits of an abstract rereading?
Once
again Morris extracts the geometric lines from facades, bridges, or highway
networks, which are transformed into cones, cylinders, rectangles or lines
calling to mind this famous quote by Cézanne, "Everything in nature
is
modeled on the sphere, the cone, and the cylinder. You have to learn to paint
from these simple figures, then you can do whatever you want."
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General Curators :
Nicolas Bourriaud, Jérôme Sans
Curator of the exhibition :
Claire Staebler
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At
the same period:
“Robert
Malaval,
kamikaze”
14 Sep> 08 Jan 05
Saâdane
Afif
“Lyrics”
08 Oct > 20 Nov 05
Nobuyoshi
Araki
"Arakinema"
08 Oct > 23 Oct 05
Rebecca Bournigault
“La
chambre
interdite”
08 Oct > 20 Nov 05
Valéry Grancher
“Shiwiars”
Sep-Oct 05
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Permanent partnership
With the support of Porter Novelli,
Public-Relations Consultants
*********************************************************
Communications Manager
Sofianne Le Bourhis
assistée de Mylène Ferrand
Tél : + 33 1 47 23 54 57
sofianne@palaisdetokyo.com
Press Contact
Tél : + 33 1 47 23 52 00
presse@palaisdetokyo.com
Palais de Tokyo,
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