THE MAC VAL MASSACRE (in English)

(click on images to see trailers or extracts)

I should explain why I’m writing and sending you all this. Otherwise I could be accused of criticising, which I’m not. I am not interested in holding a critical position. I already told you: I’m frightened.

I have the feeling French art is dead. I mean that art -in France- is dead. Movements emerge, so why wouldn’t art die in certain places and periods of time? I’m not saying that lightly, believe me. I’ve been back in Paris for about eight years now, and I’ve not hurried to conclusions. But I think I can say it now: here, art is dead. And I nearly went myself. I escaped the zombies just in time. I hope so. It's in sentences, in the interaction between words, right there in verbs and their function. But it feels like it's in your head. Worst than Burrough's virus.

I'm not sure this disruption of language is the symptom of something else happening or if it's actually where it's taking place: in a sick performative speech act. A bacterial attack. A slow corruption of the mind. Mine or theirs? I don't know. Living dead are surrounding me and I'm being talked to like I'm mentally disabled. Everything is going to be all right. Don't panic. As long as you don't look for trouble and keep quiet. Don't Look Now.

 I intended to take you slowly to my hypotheses with various non-art examples but a friend of mine called. He had invited an English artist to present a performance in his studio and was just finding out that the Mac Val Museum of Contemporary Art was celebrating its 5th anniversary. I told him I had seen the info, but the «win a year duo pass» offer got me off their website immediately. They already talk like that for telephones, washing machines, travel deals and day creams, I’m not too keen on hearing it again in art. So I went back to check and see how strong the competition was… I read their presentation and fell again in some sort of nasty trap with spelling and grammatical mistakes in every sentence. A nightmare in French, my mother tongue, and a translation "incubus". You're going to say I shouldn't bother. It's just bullshit. Don't loose your time with it. Sorry. This is call for help.

It's the artist John Russell who introduced me to horror movies. I'm not a specialist like him, but after my man died, I thought they were the only realistic films around with the power to represent certain life experiences with great accuracy. Here I am: deep in the genre. The Exorcist.

"Of course "Let's Dance" refers to the well-known David Bowie album (1983), with melancholic overtones."

First sentence and I’m puzzled already. I go and listen to the music but I can’t quite perceive any melancholia. Could it be that the author meant that a listener over 27 years old could feel melancholic when listening to it... hum... grammar...

 English is not my first language and I do apologize for my own mistakes... but French is my first language: there is a difference in a music being melancholic and a listener being melancholic. Never mind, it’s not that important. Now, it’s the 
title Let’s Dance referring to Let’s Dance, which is bothering me. A reference? Isn’t it just the same or is there something I don’t get here? Does it have something to do with of course at the beginning of the sentence? Is it because nobody would be that stupid to think about the eponym 50’s musical with Fred Astaire? I don’t know. I don’t feel too well. Deliverance.

An invitation? An injunction? 

Eeeeeuhhhh...  Why do you ask? What exactly is the question? Yes, I guess let’s dance is a form of invitation rather than an injunction -dance or I'll kill you stupid mother fucker, squeak-, which I suppose would be a bit violent. Unless we're already in some mad Carrie remake. Carrie.

As strange as it may seem, this title seems to echo/ reason with the slogan ActUp used to chant: "I will dance anyway"; for this actually deals with a form of resistance!
The spelling mistake in the French version is a mix-up between "raisonner" (to think) and "résonner" (to echo) usualy used in rather bad jokes. Even the automatic corrector would notice. Ah well, it can happen… Is the word dance the echo? Like in Dance with me (the film), or Dance on (the music). Maybe there’s something between ActUp and Bowie I don’t know about… I don’t get the link with resistance either, but it’s a good word. Especially when it actually deals with it. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

 This group exhibition delivers a vision of backstage. Melancholic, that’s how you could, in a way, qualify the subject of the exhibition.
Believe me. It’s a nightmare to translate. Please don’t think it’s only my fault. I do make mistakes, but I swear, in this case, you can’t tell if it gives a picture of what's behind the set, if you’re backstage looking at the theatre from behind the curtain, or if the exhibition is a scenery. Me lost. Me crazy woman. Me intelligent. Mad. What's the link between resistance and melancholia? What is a melancholic subject in this case? Does it mean this exhibition is about melancholia? If it’s like Bowie’s album, it’s only going to make very, very depressed people cry; or people with strong memories. It's maybe translated from German and an intern is going to be sacked, sorry. I don't know. I'm ashamed. Rosemary's Baby.

 The irrepressible need to commemorate together important moments of life is one of the red threads linking together around 50 pieces by international artists brought together for "Let's Dance" from the 2nd of October to the 16th of January 2011.
Breathe in, breathe out. It’s very, very difficult to read in French. I’m telling you. It’s an attack. What is this irrepressible or irresistible need? Is it just badly put together? Am I stupid? Nasty? Dishonest? Mean? Am I a bad person? Who is feeling this need? What’s going on? Are you talking to me? Who are you talking to? Meaning is like a beast, hiding somewhere, wounded, frightened maybe. Alien. I don't even know if it's friendly or not. I just don't get what's going on. Profondo Rosso

"Let's Dance” suggests a visit of platitudes/common elements within celebration through its various motives/ motifs: birthdays, fire works, candles, cakes, neighbourhood parties, rites of passage, and music… 

I told you it was a nightmare to translate. Should I write "common elements" when the correct translation should be "platitudes". An exhibition visiting platitudes? Well, if you say so yourself... Not uninteresting if it's well done. But somehow I don't think it's the case here.

Stop.
That’s where I shouldn't read anymore. If I hadn't decided to write about it I would have closed their site by now. I can’t give them the benefit of the doubt anymore. It’s too much. I can’t be correcting words in my head all the time. I can’t go mad because it’s the Mac Val and they already have 900 people on their facebook event page. Visiting celebration elements like candles? I’m feeling weak, and slightly dizzy. I’m alone. How can I seriously go there and say hello to the curator? "Hi, that’s very interesting. I love visiting platitudes through motives in this enormous institution." Rituals. Rites of passage. Ooooh. And there's the motifs/motives confusion... Justification or ornament? The cake as pattern? The cake as reason for... I don't know what... Who cares? Who the fuck cares? In space, nobody can hear you scream. In hell nobody listens to your grammar problems. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

… which are as many meeting points for communities, which don’t prevent loneliness. 

 

I swear. I have a weird sensation. It can’t be someone who doesn’t speak French. You would notice specific mistakes (as you probably do with me). Which... which... Maybe it's nothing. Blair Witch Project. This exhibition celebrates the 5th anniversary of a very serious art centre in the Paris suburb. A Museum with a 3,5 millions € annual operating budget. It’s a big place. I’m not cynical. This is not a joke. Unless it is a political statement... I love art. This is real. The return of the real/the living dead. Why go on reading? Why take meaning for granted? Why am I drawn in it? Who is it written for? Why don't I just forget about it? I do know that in the art world nobody gives a f..k about this Mac Val text. I also know the opening will be packed (free food and wine)- which doesn't prevent loneliness. Ah ah ah. You will not escape the irrepressible need to commemorate. The Wicker Man

The exhibition is thus conceived as a large vanitas.
Surprise. A simple idea despite the weirdness of the construction. Why "thus"? What it the relation between anniversaries, cakes, neighbourhood parties, Bowie and the set? Oh, but hey there is a skull in the exhibition. Here we are. Thus - a vanitas. It's ok. That's a false attack, a lure. It's just a bit lazy, but not that dangerous. 1984.

As one goes along through the exhibition, story snatches interweave.
Sorry again. Science-fiction. I know I can think, I can speak. I know about grammar. Mama? Even in my own language I have to interpret. Translating mistakes when you're trying to avoid them yourself is a weird exercise. It's really like an infection. Some parts of the sentence are correct and some are not, so you make something up out of it. Can you help me? Suspiria. Suspiria.

Events, which are  furtively perceived around an installation or a sculptor, a video or a painting - are as many brief, disturbing and incomplete moments.

I love thinking and I know it’s not always straightforward. I also know about poetry and schizophrenia. I’m trying hard to act normal here. Does it sound strange to you? Maybe it’s a neuronal infection? Something in my brain that prevents me from linking words and following what is supposed to be quite a fixed and regulated structure.

Maybe a virus? A tumour? What is an "incomplete moment"? Maybe it's an Ok sentence but with all the previous ones being so broken, I'm so disorientated. Is it me? Who are you? What do you want? Is the tumour in the text or in my head? October.

But these scenes are universal enough to allow each and all of use to identify with them.
Universal, it’s for a certain type of glue isn’t it? Didn’t we sort of agree that universal was controversial? Hey, but I'm thinking again here? I'm starting to disagree and argue... hum. NO. Let me out of the issue of universality in the context of platitudes as motives. I’m starting to have serious doubts here. Is this the real text? It looks like someone pirated them, or sent them a spy or a terrorist. Maybe there’s a right-wing nerd out there, taking the piss - and I fell in the trap. I hate plot theories. I have no theory. I’m lost. I want out.

 Nevertheless, unlike clichés describing perfectly stereotyped situations, "Let's Dance" plays around with /make fun of ambiguity in objects.

This is getting tedious. «Se jouer» doesn’t really mean «play around with» but more «make fun of»… anyway… Why does the author explain what a cliché is but not a stereotype? Do you understand why I’m afraid? You cannot not understand? Please tell me you feel the danger here. It plays with my intelligence. Or maybe I’m completely wrong, maybe it's funny. An exhibition making fun of ambiguities on top of visiting platitudes, that would be interesting. Is it trendy? Pop? Did I miss the point? If it's a new thing why so many grammatical mistakes? One in each sentence. We are talking big museum here. A big museum of contemporary art. For the exhibition "Let's Dance", nothing ironical nor morbid, no effusion, no empathy.

I don’t know what to say. I’m trapped in a delirium. Stuck in a sick mind speech. Caught in a bad joke. Am I the only one who can’t read this? Has my brain lost a practical ability, like humour? Yes, maybe it is humour. Am I the one going crazy or is it the Mac Val? It’s one of us. It's probably me. Who would jeopardize their career for grammatical mistakes? I swear I won't read art texts anymore. Art in France is not quite dead, it's a living-dead entity.

No appropriation of the past, no anticipation of the future. When timelessness sets in, even nostalgia ceases to exist.

The final zombies’ attack. I told you. It’s a horror movie I’m in. Even nostalgia ceases to exist. HA HA HA!!
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