Since 2012, Mathieu Copeland et Philippe Decrauzat produce videos stemming from “a desire to film
sound, record places, and dive into the process of a material construction and destruction.” This publication—between artist's book and critical essay—considers all films produced until then by the art critic and the artist, and offers a basis for reflexion and work for those to come. The 488 pages of this book includes over 2200 images from the films and exhibitions views. It includes critical texts as well as original statements by artists and musicians who collaborated with the duo.
The exhibition “A Personal Sonic Geology” gathers together the films realised by Mathieu Copeland and Philippe Decrauzat since 2012. Stemming from a desire to film sound, record places, and dive into the process of a material construction and destruction, these films are screened using a projection apparatus that integrates an exhibition of monochrome screens/paintings.
Invited to create a programme and events and exhibitions at le Plateau from march 2014 on, Mathieu Copeland and Philippe Decrauzat have each time used these spaces and this time to involve artists from the visual and music fields—using the exhibition format, or he denser format of the event—and film, their end purpose being to pursue their film collaboration to present to the eye and ear, in the form of an immersive arrangement, something that has already been seen, heard and experienced.
Creating a dialogue between filmed images, painting and sound production, these films bring together a constellation of artists, superimposing and fragmentating the 16 mm film stock. Filming musicians including
Alan Licht, Ellen Fullman or FM Einheit as they realise the soundtrack for these films to be, creating a dialogue between works of art and the camera, with
Marcia Hafif's drawings or a painting by
Peter Halley, filming moments and places of creation such as the realisation of a painting by
John M Armleder, the re-enactment of a lecture-demonstration by
Gustav Metzger, Swiss artist and “researcher” Emma Kunz's Grotto, and production sites including a printing press in Marrakech, a textile manufacture or a paint factory, the film's components shape a linear assemblage of overlaid realities.
the exhibition catalogue combines critical texts of
Michel Gauthier (Centre Pompidou), Jonathan Pouthier (Centre Pompidou) Paul Hegarty (
Noise Music author), forewords by the filmmaker
Charles de Meaux (
Anna Sanders Films) and original statements by FM Einheit, Ellen Fullman,
Ulrich Krieger, Alan Licht, Lydia Lunch, Agathe Max,
Phill Niblock, Robert Poss and Susan Stenger.
Curator and publisher (
Mathieu Copeland Editions), Mathieu Copeland (born 1977) lives and works in London. Graduate from the London Goldsmiths College, he curated, among others, the exhibitions
Voids (with Laurent Le Bon,
John Armleder, Gustav Metzger,
Mai-Thu Perret and Clive Phillpot) at Centre Pompidou and Kunsthalle Bern in 2009,
Soundtrack for an Exhibition and
Alan Vega at Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon,
Expart-Art Centre / EAC (with
Brian Eno,
Pierre Huyghe,
Ben Kinmont,
Claude Lévêque,
Didier Marcel,
Olivier Mosset,
Shimabuku,
Dan Walsh, and Ian Wilson) at ICA, London, Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon, Museum Sztuki Lodz, CAC Vilnius, Kunstihoone Tallinn, and Bizart Shanghai,
Meanwhile… Across Town (with
Cerith Wyn Evans) at Centre Point Building, London. He participated at the
9th Lyon Biennal. In 2002, Mathieu Copeland has launched
Anna Sanders Films World Tour (a program of films by
Charles de Meaux,
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster,
Pierre Huyghe et
Philippe Parreno). He is the editor of the book
Anna Sanders Films – The In-Between, published by Les presses du réel.
See also
Mathieu Copeland Editions.
Born in 1974, Philippe Decrauzat lives and works in Lausanne.
