The Dead - Jean Dupuy

THE DEAD - JEAN DUPUY

2002 & ongoing, loop, 2:20’,

HD video, 27" flatscreen, mirrored cylinder, pedestal, directional speaker

The Dead is an ongoing series of cylindric/anamorphic video reliquaries honoring people whom I have once recorded and who have since passed away, this one in memory of artist Jean Dupuy (Nov 22, 1925 – Apr 04, 2021). I first met Jean Dupuy and Olga Adorno shortly after moving to New York. Jean, together with Christian Xatrec, organized Pastiche at the Grommet Gallery, where I first showed ↗ The Air is Full of Voices.

Presented on upward facing flatscreen monitors with a central cylindric mirror, the videos are geometrically distorted. In the cylindric reflection, the original likeness becomes recognizable again. The mirror not only acts as the key to decipher the coded form of the 2-dimensional video but allows the viewer to walk around the image, creating the illusion of the luminous apparitions literally rising from their electromagnetic grave. Loop and cylindrical anamorphosis suggest the utopian possibility of eternal preservation, reminiscent of Morel's Invention by Bioy Casares or Raymond Roussel's Locus Solus, where the dead continually act out a pivotal incident in their lives. Though no doubt presumptuous, in The Dead, that would be the fleeting moment of our chance encounter.

The initial set of five shrines was presented in 2002 as part of my exhibition Astral Memories of a Flying Man at the Musée Jenisch in Vevey, Switzerland. It became the first electronic work of the Museum's collection.

ALEXANDER HAHN