FOCUS PERFORMANCES

sa reconstitution ultérieure ? Pour Vonna-Michell, la performance, ou plutôt la performativité, permet de réincarner une expérience sensible, en redoublant l’oeuvre par l’oeuvre. Since 2005 British artist Tris VonnaMichell (b. 1982) has been carrying out research on Chopin in his installations and performances. Not the composer Chopin, but Henri (1922–2008), a less well-known proponent of experimental sound poetry. In 2014, when Vonna-Michell was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize, he made a film titled Finding Chopin, dans l’Essex. This piece continues his exploration of the notions of the obsolescence and fragility of the artwork, which already shaped his previous pieces about Henri Chopin. In the auditorium of the Grand Palais, VonnaMichell will present a new performance pursuing some of the directions opened up by this, his first film. Attentive to narrative strategies, mixing text and image, the performance will layer video sequences shot in 16 mm and textual excerpts written by Vonna-Michell, slide projections and tableaux vivants, all exploring the same place, Essex and its marshes, birthplace of both artists. The play of layers and discrepancies brings the story to life, at the same time questioning the construction of biography and the genre that is performance: how do you balance together the fragility of a life and its ups and downs, and the always precarious equilibrium of the construction of a work, with its later reconstruction? For Vonna-Michell performance, or rather, performativity, makes it possible to re-embody a sensitive experience, by overlayering the work with the work.

Translation, C. Penwarden