Salle Principale, Paris
Jean-Baptiste Perret
For its fourth participation in the Art-o-rama fair, Salle Principale Gallery presents the video artist Jean-Baptiste Perret. Joining the artists represented by the gallery in 2023, this presentation is the first opportunity for the gallery to show his work. His production of films mixing documentary and fictions, is crossed by the question of care that he considers as an attention to the vulnerability, inseparable from the regenerative power of individuals.
For Art-o-rama, the gallery chooses a solo exhibition and presents two videos, Le Sorbier des oiseleurs (2018) and La Trappe (2018). In the manner of an anthropologist filmmaker, Jean-Baptiste Perret chooses an area, often rural, and immerses himself in it for long periods. He establishes relationships with the individuals he meets there, filming their habitat and their know-how. These videos are part of a research project carried out by the artist in the Haute-Chaumes du Forez region, where he followed the life paths of four inhabitants.
The video Le Sorbier des oiseleurs (2018) shows a man making a birdcall and calling in the fog. The artist uses a traditional technique to make contact with bird species. He hijacks this technique to link it to a local story about how shepherds, leading their flocks through thick fog, would reassure the farms below by producing clearly identifiable sounds. This video explores in a poetic way the original methods of communication deployed in these cold lands of the Massif Central where the solitude of beings is constantly confronted with the power of the landscape and the presence of animals.
The video La Trappe (2018) shows an immaculate nature, in which solitary characters evolve to the rhythm of the seasons, speaking sparingly. His filmic work, sober and meditative, oscillates between documentary and fiction, rendering moments of life whose compositions by sketches evoke the painting of the Flemish primitives. In La Trappe, the video artist follows a hunter progressing in the snow around a bird trap, on the lookout for the life that surrounds him. The man is a farm worker trying to rebuild himself after a burn-out. During the exchanges with the artist, he confided in us about his vulnerability, and tried to find ways to heal his psychological and physical pain.
With the support of the galleries / exhibition of the
Center national des arts plastiques
https://www.salleprincipale.com
