Nicolas Provost. Papillon d’amour

Papillon d’amour, 3′30”, 2003
music: The Wrath of Köhn by Köhn AKA Jürgen De Blonde
producer: NICOLAS PROVOST
courtesy Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp

For Papillon d’amour (2003), NICOLAS PROVOST subjects a number of fragments
from Rashomon (1951), a film by AKIRA KUROSAWA a mirror effect thus creating
ethereal figures, constantly remelting into each other and slipping away again.
I like to sculpt with existing or prefabricated audiovisual material and turn it into
a new story, a new idea. A great quality of classic Hollywood imagery is that it
forms an important part of the collective memory. Actually, the fact that
I started working with found footage also has to do with technological
developments. Around the turn of the millennium, the digital revolution made it
possible to upload films on your computer or laptop and easily re-edit them yourself,
just at home. So I started sculpting existing material almost by accident.
NICOLAS PROVOST in conversation with IVE STEVENHEYDENS, June 2013

Over the past decade, artist and filmmaker Nicolas Provost has carefully shaped a body of work that explores the quirks of human expectation by playing with images from film, literature, and popular culture that are ingrained in our collective memory. His works are in a number of collections, including The New Art Gallery Walsall and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg, SMAK Ghent and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. His work has earned a long list of awards and screenings at prestigious festivals including The Sundance Film Festival, The Venice Film Festival, The Berlinale, The San Sebastian Film Festival and The Locarno Film Festival. His critically acclaimed feature film ‘The Invader’ had it’s world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival 2011. He recently completed the ‘Plot Point’ trilogy, 3 fiction films he shot with a hidden camera in New York, Las Vegas and Tokyo.

Good news: his fourth solo exhibition at Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp is currently on view until March 15, 2014

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