Mounir Fatmi The Human Factor

Mounir Fatmi’s new video work, The Human Factor screening in the Gallery 2

The Human Factor (2018, video, 15’ 56”) is a new video work produced for this exhibition though a collaboration with Mounir Fatmi, a contemporary artist who was born in Morroco and currently lives and works in France, and aims to reconsider the theme of “Exotic x Modern” from a contemporary perspective. Mounir deconstructs elements from the silent film L’inhumanie (1924) directed by Marcel L’Herbier, which is considered a manifesto of the Art Deco movement, and had involved the artistic participation of figures such as Fernand Léger, Robert Mallet-Stevens, and Paul Poiret. These elements are reassembled into a three-part video: “Body,” “Machine,” and “Experiment,” that are interwoven with archive materials on the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition and Art Deco practices of the time, symbolic images of the era like that of Josephine Baker, as well as aspects of 3D animation. The work attempts to consider the tendencies by which notions of Art Deco and Exoticism had come to intersect with one another –a different side to the flamboyance and modernity that had permeated France in the period between the two world wars of the century. From the overlapping of various images, it is possible to observe the complex emotions of the artist, who while working within the French art sphere, constantly views himself as “another.”

Mounir Fatmi

Born in Tangiers, Morocco in 1970 and currently working in Paris. Having studied at a fine arts graduate school in Rome, he is an artist whose work covers a great deal of different media, including film, illustration, painting and carving amongst others. He held his solo exhibitions, participated in group exhibitions and solo exhibited his works at various biennales around the world. In 2017, he exhibited his work in Venice Biennale, in the planning of Tunisia, the “Absence of Path” in various places on the island of Venice. In 2006, his work received the Senghor prise at the Dakar biennale. In 2010 he received the grand prize at the Cairo Biennale. In 2013, he was shortlisted for the Jameel Prize of the Victoria & Albert Museum. In Japan, his work was exhibited on the exhibition Africa Remix at the Mori Museum in 2016. In 2016, he was invited to the Setouchi Triennale. In 2017, Mounir participated in a group show Diaspora now ! In the Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu.

*Screen is closed 10 minutes before closing the museum
*The screening will be paused for 1 hour prior to and after, on the occasion of an event in Gallery 2. For further details regarding event schedules, please refer to the calendar on the museum website.

Contact
Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum, EXOTIC × MODERN: French Art Deco and inspiration afar
Tel 03-3443-0201 Fax 03-3443-3228
E-mail：info@teien-art-museum.ne.jp

EXHIBITION

EXOTIC × MODERN: French Art Deco and inspiration afar
Saturday, 6 October, 2018 – Monday, 14 January, 2019