Éric Andréatta | Sans titre, 2000

Muriel Anssens

Synopsis / Description:

Capture vidéo d'une performance d'Éric Andréatta au Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain (MAMAC) de Nice.
© Éric Andréatta
Réalisée par Muriel Anssens.
Courtesy Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain (MAMAC).
Numérisation réalisée par la Villa Arson, Nice

©

Performances:

untitled

Témoignage:

Éric Andréatta | Sans titre, 2000

Description:

This performance is part of Eric Andréatta’s work with whiting chalk powder. On the stage of the MAMAC auditorium, six glazed stretchers measuring about 80 by 170 cm were placed vertically on stands. An architect's ruler was placed at the top of the stretchers. A veil made of a folded, thick, opaque pink fabric was attached between the ruler and the stretchers. Six of Eric Andréatta’s friends, of various non-artistic professions, came onstage. Each one of them whitewashed the stretcher behind which he was standing with the chalk powder, until he completely disappeared.
Meanwhile, Claude Faïm, a psychiatrist and poet, who was hiding behind the curtain, read aloud a text with no catch [a text which doesn't provoke a mental image when read or listened to, Editors note]. When the last word was uttered, Eric Andréatta who was watching the action from the technical room, switched off the electricity in the auditorium.
In the dark the six protagonists knocked down the ruler, which scratched the whiting as it fell, creating a giant bar code. The fabric was also pulled down. The light was turned back on, the sight concealed for good from the audience by the pink veil. The performance had been programmed at a specific time. Eric Andréatta had arranged for the ushers to separate people arriving together at the entrance of the auditorium, and to place them next to strangers.

Partial transcript of a telephone conversation with Eric Andréatta, 2012.