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François Durif |
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« Lors de mon transbahutement en Italie, j’ai emporté : sœurs, amis, amant imaginaire, père, mère, et leur cancer dormant, la menace de la mort à tout moment, des cartons de livres, des cahiers vierges, des classeurs bourrés, des traces de vie passée, des notes manuscrites jamais relues, des tas de papiers que je voulais détruire, des boîtes remplies d’images découpées, des tapuscrits dont je ne retiendrai que quelques bribes, avant de tout réduire en confettis et de les voir se disperser sous mes yeux. »
Avec Torno subito (« je reviens tout de suite »), François Durif télescope souvenirs d’enfance, perte soudaine de ses parents et enquête sur l’histoire du confetti. Au fil des mois, il s’allège de ses archives, selon un geste joueur : trouer du papier à l’emporte-pièce, tel un Sisyphe heureux.
“When I hauled myself to Italy, I brought along the following: sisters, friends, imaginary lover, father, mother, and both their dormant cancers, the threat of death at any moment, cases of books, blank notebooks, folders filled to the brim, remnants of a past life, handwritten notes never read again, piles of paper I wanted to destroy, boxes full of cut-out images, typescripts of which I would retain only a few snippets, before reducing all of it to confetti and watching them scatter before my eyes.”
Although François Durif joined the Villa Medici in Rome with the plan of reducing his personal archives to confetti and then scattering the remains during a promenade performance in the capital city, the initial programme of his artistic residency would take on a dramatic turn with his mother's sudden death, followed by the announcement that his father would follow soon, bringing him back to the issue of mourning and to his former job as an undertaker.
Between two countries and two parents, François Durif compares their posthumous portraits to his initial carnivalesque pattern. Unconcerned about chronology, he creates a montage of past and present fragments that collide, while unearthing here and there a history of confetti since the mid-19th century, trusting the written word to release life where it seemed to have been shut away.
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