Galerie van Gelder AP
‘Klucht van de Jacht’
ÉRIC GIRAUDET DE BOUDEMANGE
Curated by JULIA GEERLINGS
27 november t/m 27 december 2014
OPENING: donderdag 27 november, 17.00 – 19.00 uur
Klucht van de Jacht presents the newest video installation by Éric Giraudet de Boudemange (Boulogne-Billancourt, 1983). The installation displays a 3D film on deer hunting, carnavalesque practices and sexuality presented together with 3D glasses as ritual masks used by visitors.
‘Klucht van de Jacht’ is entitled after a satirical and burlesque play by the seventeen-century Dutch poet and playwright W. Focquenbroch connecting hunting birds with hunting women. The video by Giraudet de Boudemange is composed of several acts unwrapping a ‘hunting scenario’ from the beginning of the hunt to the end with the ritual of the dogs eating the meet of the deer. The humorous and absurdist scenes are reenactments of the songs played by hunters on their trumpets to communicate the course of the hunt and describe the behavior of the deer. The video frames the hunt as a sexual carnavalesque metaphor with a succession of images of horsemen, dogs, camouflage and burlesque forest spirits with masks. The hunting songs, usually played on the trumpet, are sung a capella by a trumpet player almost like a throat singer. The song will be heard throughout the whole video as a way of mapping the forest and is seen as a geographical and ritual tool at the same time. The 3D technique enhances the feeling of a theatre stage and the mask-like 3D glasses invites visitors to be part of the installation.
The installation is the last chapter of the artists ongoing research on deer hunting, ritualized practices and folklore that led this year to Hourvari the hectic sounds of feelings, performance at Le Cyclop in Milly la Forêt and The dance of the horned, and other hunting scenes from the forest of Fontainebleau a solo show at Spazioborgogno – Museo Pecci in Milan. The art practice of Giraudet de Boudemange consists of various mediums to capture ethnographic research of traditional games and sports. In previous projects he focused on pigeon fancying, vertical pole archery, fierljeppen (pole jumping in Friesland) and coal miners games like throwing javelots (giant feathery darts) and colored bats. These partially forgotten regional games reveal the history, folk tales, local mythologies and the geographic conditions of a certain area. The traditional games are also influenced through the landscape. For example Fierljeppen, which was developed by farmers as means of moving through the Dutch farmland. The artist exposes and connects the games with personal interpretations and uses ‘mapping’ methods to research the socio-cultural and geographic characteristics.
Éric Giraudet de Boudemange is a former resident of the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (2012/2013). He graduated at the Ecole Nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 2007 and at the Le Fresnoy, studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing in 2011. He took part in a number of residency programs including the Townhouse gallery in Cairo, Finis terrae in Ouessant and Mava in Cotonou. Giraudet de Boudemange has performed and exhibited in group- and solo exhibitions including; Le Cyclop in Milly la foret, De Appel in Amsterdam, Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris, Spazioborgogno in Milan, Galerie Waldburger/Wouters in Brussels and in 2015 at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
