B-Ville 2049 and Beyond

The artists of B-Ville 2049 put down roots in the same Paris neighborhood, were, or will be, well acquainted with each other, and despite different métiers found that their work often had consistent themes and preoccupations, notably that of artistic constraint which was attributed as often as not to the physical instead of the political world. Do we accept the body or reject it? Are we bound or not by time? Can objects liberate themselves from their “objectivity?”

These questions led most of them to a minimalist aesthetic. De Parnier rejected motion in her series of “Still Life” videos. Pierre Bronsky redefined the art of film’s walk-on parts. Montrémy, as well, began writing shorter and shorter works, telegraphing meaning, abbreviating even words. Khalil seesawed between excess and utter silence.

Q. Sutherland embraced neither excess nor minimalism and is the least typical of the group, perhaps because she arrived in B-Ville as an adolescent and continued to work in her native English. Resisting the stylistic conformity, she did in fact grapple with the aforementioned themes and belongs in any discussion of B-Ville.

Writer and performance artist Mala Dorore grapples with these issues as well, staging pre-enactments of de Parnier's "Portrait of a Woman as a Sphinx."

The document, MANIFESTE contre le présent depuis un probable mercredi futur (Manifesto Against the Present from A Probably Future Day), may offer a useful starting point for those not familiar with the group.

Director: Grégoire Poilroux