Solo show
NoguerasBlanchard is delighted to announce an exhibition of new work
by Marine Hugonnier (Paris, 1969) centred round the eponymous film
shot on the river Niger in Mali, The Secretary of the Invisible. The
work is an homage to Jean Rouch, the French anthropologist and
filmmaker whose 1955 film, Les Maîtres Fous (The Mad Masters)
heralded the arrival of a “direct cinema” which set out to
collapse the distance that separates the apprehending gaze (the
camera) from its subject (the Other). Following Rouch, The Secretary
of the Invisible was filmed in the historic homeland of the Songhai
people.
Re-enacting the participatory collaboration between actor and
director pioneered by Rouch, the film documents the shared journey of
Hugonnier and her chosen companions Damouré Zika and Moussa Hamidou -
Jean Rouch's principle actor and sound engineer, respectively – as
they set out to make a film together. Set during 'Cinema day' the
annual film festival in Niger’s capital Niemey, the narrative also
features a “Holley” ceremony – an animist Songhay ritual. The
story recounts Hugonnier’s exchange of her radio for another
“transmittor of invisibility”, a South-West African transformation
mask, which enables the inhabitation of animal spirits. The mask,
which originates from another tribe, becomes an intruder in the
Niamey’s ceremony, mirroring the presence of the camera, and behind
it, the artist. Like the radio, and the mask, the author of the film
is a conduit, or “secretary”, through which the events are
transmitted and hence a metonymy is established that runs through the
film’s discussion of authorship, and the paradox of critiquing the
politics of seeing with a camera.
The gold leaf collage is a photogram from the film representing the
chamaleon. The reptile's change of colour, its camouflage and
subsequent invisibility are placed in parallel with the ability of
the director to become an "invisible eye" and to remain in the
service of this condition. The theme of mimesis, metonymically
represented here by the chameleon, runs throughout the film. The
title The Secretary of the Invisible is an expression used by the
character, Elisabeth Costello in J. M. Coetzee's book entitled
'Elisabeth Costello'. An expression Coetzee, in turn, borrowed from
the polish poet Czesław Miłosz.
Hugonnier’s practice has reconsidered the phenomenal world as a
cultural construct, exploring how our visual aprehension of it is
subject to ideological, political and physical positioning. Her
films, photographs and works on paper are presented within broader
systems of signification drawn from her anthropological studies. The
artist approaches her themes and reflects on man’s ambitious quest
for empire through with a combination of visual techniques from the
languages of film and photography.
Hugonnier’s recent solo exhibitions include Kunsthalle Malmo (2009);
MAMCO, Geneva (2008); SMAK, Ghent (2007); Philadelphia Museum of Art
(2007); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2007) and
Kunsthalle Bern (2007). Her work has also been shown in Pensée
Sauvage, Frankfurter Kunstverein (2007); Badlands, MassMOCA (2007);
Paraísos Indómitos, MARCO Vigo (2007), Universal Experience, MCA
Chicago, USA/ Hayward Gallery, London (2005), Cine y casi cine,
MNCARS Madrid (2007). She has participated in the 52 Biennale di
Venezia (2007); the 27 Sao Paulo Biennial (2006); the Busan Biennale,
Korea (2006) and T1 Torino Triennale, Turin (2005).
The gallery would like to thank the collaboration of Max Wigram
Gallery (London) and MAMCO, Geneva.
Nogueras Blanchard
xucla', 7 - Barcelona