« Having knocked out a false widow, he escapes killers thanks to a dorsal reactor which allows him to fly away in the airs. Real prototype, this personal rocket then propels him to a height of some two hundred metres, before the opening credits ring out intoned with bombast by Tom Jones on top of John Barry’s powerful score… »
The synopsis of the film Thunderball realized by Terence Young in 1965 serves as a resounding starter to the eponymous exhibition which takes up residence at Mains d’Œuvres this spring.
Pirating the action movie, thirty or so invited artists deploy for Opération Tonnerre visual and sonic explosions, improbable urban actions, mysterious mappings and installations with special effects. The works presented investigate the mechanisms of the spectacular, according to a low-tech principle. Without giving up attempting to surprise the spectator, the artists of Opération Tonnerre prefer found and transformed materials as much as real situations to that of a blockbuster production. Elisa Pône constrains the salvoes of a fireworks display into the cockpit of a car. Haroon Mirza orders a sound and visual chain reaction where water and electricity miss a fatal meeting, set between brilliant diodes, amplifiers and vintage furniture. With a nod to the film, Jean Denant’s intervention brings to the foreground a planisphere of the concrete wall of the showroom whereas the interactive software conceived by Martin Le Chevallier invites the visitor to enter the skin of a seducer flirting with actresses from scenes of mythical films, as beautiful as they are famous. Indeed, the cinematographic image inspires, as found in the photographs taken by Marie-Aude Leledy who compiles a directory of impressions of déjà vu, dissimulated actions where an atmosphere of conspiracy reigns. Likewise Déjà Vu this idyllic image by Alexandre Perigot showing a Thai island, where a James Bond film was made, today invaded by tourists. If fiction was the point of departure of the proposition, phagocytosed reality by the fictitious is at the heart of the concerns of the artists presented at Mains d’Œuvres.
The opening of the exhibition will be accompanied by a flood of artistic and musical performances, calling upon the imagination of the adventurer handyman (Constantin Alexandrakis), special effects (Céline Ahond and François-Thibaut Pencenat), the invasion of images and their commonplaces (Geoffroy Rondeau, Bojan Stojic) or conspiracy theory (Sergio Verastegui).
Opération Tonnerre follows up the exhibition United Artists presented at the Gallery 10rd in Nice last December. The production company United Artists was created in 1919 by four actors and directors among the pioneers of the Hollywood cinema (Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith) avid to take back the reins of their productions exploited by the big studios. Julien Chevy, Pierre Fisher, Vincent Ganivet and Marie-Aude Leledy, initiators of this project in three parts, appropriate with mockery the formula which presided over the inauguration of the american company : « The inmates are taking over the asylum ! ».
Céline Ahond & François-Thibaut Pencenat, Constantin Alexandrakis, Fabienne Audéoud, Bad Beuys Entertainment, Fayçal Baghriche, Jean-Baptiste Bayle, Simon Boudvin, Aline Bouvy & John Gillis, Julien Chevy, Michel de Broin, Jean Denant, Pierre Fisher, Vincent Ganivet, KIT (Julie Béna, Daphné Navarre, Ève Pietruschi, Laurence Deleersnyder), Martin Le Chevallier, Ma Leledy, Charles Lopez, Justin Meekel & Matthieu Cardi, Nicolas Milhé, Haroon Mirza, Nicolas Muller, Simon Nicaise, Alexandre Perigot, Émilie Perotto, Elisa Pône, Frédéric Pradeau, Julien Prévieux, Geoffroy Rondeau, Bojan Stojic, Julie Vayssière, Sergio Verastegui, Adrien Vescovi...
A proposal by United Artists with Hanna Alkema and Isabelle Le Normand
Opening on Friday April 17 th (6.pm-midnight)