Clement Cogitore

Porteur (excerpt), 2004
DVCam PAL N&B / 2 min (loop)

Memento Mori – Le discours des vanités au XVII° siècle (excerpt), 2012
video HDCAM – coul – 97min

Chroniques (excerpt), 2006
fiction exp. 35mm color/ B&W / 30 min
dolby SR/1/1,66

 –

Passages (excerpt), 2006
35mm color /4min (loop)

Although I heard about CLEMENT COGITORE before my visit at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg yesterday which is currently presenting a solo exhibition of the French artist, it was a real revelation to discover his short films.

Like his photographic work, his movies continue his practice as an individual intrigued at how the subjective and collective memory, representations of the past and the ways in which people cohabit with their images crash into each other. At the border between cinema and contemporary art, COGITORE’s videos often balance between the familiar and the unexplained wrapped up in tension and fascination. All elements – the positioning of the characters, their posture and interaction, the use of light and colour, the landscapes – seem to have been meticously constructed and appear to fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. And yet the meaning of the whole remains ambiguous, fact and fictons are constantly at odds with each other. The enigmatic quality of COGITORE‘s work offers the viewer the chance to lose himself in the work each time and to discover new readings and narratives.

His exhibitions usually include an assortment of images cased in minimal frames or simply pasted on the walls like in Strasbourg as well as a series of video installations.

Stories arrive in the head in order to be told. Sometimes paintings do the same. – JOHN BERGER, Essays in Seeing, 1979

Here is a selection of not so recent video extracts which are available online via his vimeo, but if you have the chance to see one of his exhibitions or screenings, do not hesitate!

CLEMENT COGITORE‘s exhibition Fictions at Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Strasbourg runs until 21th september, 2014



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