Screening: Fayçal Baghriche

To coincide with Faycal Baghriche’s residency at A.i.R Dubai, Delfina Foundation showcased four of his short films to kick-start a new film programme for 2012. Fayçal Baghriche works with performance, photography, film and sculpture, examining everyday existence, behavioural forms and collective symbols. He often transforms the public realm into a venue for startling transgressions, absurd scenarios, and minimalist actions tinged with humour. He has shaped an artistic practice that embodies a distinctive state of mind and triggers thoughtful critical reaction.

Films

In Point, line, particles (2008) 2 mins, 24 secs 

In Point, line, particles the artist revisits the principles of formal composition, outlined by Wassily Kandinsky in his work entitled Point and Line to Plane (1926). In this book Kandinsky defines the line as the result of a combination of a point in movement and the expression of the force of an action. Fayçal Baghriche illustrates Kandinsky’s concept by choosing a train as a surface. At the moment the train departs, the artist begins to spray a point on the wagon’s surface by simply pressing down on the spray can’s valve. The resulting point becomes a line as soon as the train accelerates. Finally, the line disappears as the train reaches a speed at which the paint can no longer stick to its surface. Herewith the artist’s meager intervention reduces the train to its simple form and its elementary speed.

Labor market (2003) 2 mins

The subway carriage is often a form of contemporary agora. It is a moving public place, which provides a captive audience for those wishing to transmit a message. This thoroughfare ‘stage’ is frequented by people-in-need who are asking for some kind of acknowledgement or help. Unable to find paid work, the artist chose this platform to propose his services, documenting his ‘pitch’ with a hidden film camera.

Le sens de la marche (Facing Forward) (2009) 5 mins, 15 secs

In the video Facing Forward time flows in reverse. Fayçal Baghriche stands immobile on a street corner; the artist appears as the only calm and poised figure in a world functioning backward. Nothing distinguishes him from the other individuals accept this immobility which places him at a distance from the rest. The impassive presence of the artist in the heart of this urban agitation leads us to ask what he is up to and how his intervention may disrupt the system.

Philippe (2008) 4 mins, 24 secs

In this work, the artist installs Philippe, a mannequin, at various tourist hot spots in Paris such as Le pont des Arts and outside the Louvre Museum. Baghriche dresses the statue from head to toe in a Tutankhamun costume, with a gold cape and mask. Onlookers mistake the statue for a motionless street performer, offering money to have their photographs taken with it. Later two tourists watch in disbelief as the artist then dismantles the mannequin to take it home.

For more information about Fayçal Baghriche and A.i.R Dubai please click here

In collaboration with

A.i.R Dubai

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