If I was curator: Michel Auder

Michel Auder

I was able to discover Michel Auder in an exhibition in Lisbon It was more his past work that attracted me, although at the same time his new work reflectes him in the 21st century. It is his way of working in a realistic atmosphere, by creating an unusual and abstract moments in his films. Every film although it doesn't seem like it has a sequence or an order, has a perfect reflection of the title and a logical side towards the project.

My favorite works:

blooding angels:Brooding Angels, Made for R.L.1988, 6 minutes

From its fiery outset, Brooding Angles is decidedly gothic and the mood anxious. It is a dark rumination on the specter of authority, resistance and paranoia marking the close of Reagan's second term in office.

Born in 1945, Auder came of age during the 1960s, a decade as tumultuous in France as it was in the United States. The decade culminated in the student/worker strikes of May 1968 that shut down the city of Paris. Auder's value system was in many respects shaped by this anti-authoritarian milieu.

Its remnants are to be found in his preponderance with issues violence and conflict as they serve to question moral progress. The soundtrack's ominous melody is recycled from footage of cellist David Soyer that can be seen in A Portrait of Alice Neel.

polaroid cocaine:Polaroid Cocaine,1993, 5 minutes

The thrill of cocaine becomes a metaphor for the consumption of images in this short montage. The title and lyrics come from Auder´s friend and 2001 Prix Goncourt winner Jean-Jacques Shuhl. The piece is composed entirely of still photographs from a variety of books and magazines that simultaneously reveal and feed an addiction to spectacle.

With a source that is once removed, Auder's scopophilia is symptomatic of society at large. The song is performed by legendary chanteuse Ingrid Caven. Suffused with a bittersweet melancholy, Canven's seasoned voice compliments Auder's selection of images which dwell on the themes of death, destruction and desire.

The melody is classic cabaret performed by a piano/violin duo who dramatically heighten the works already dark eroticism.