The Ugly One
2013 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
101 minutes
Eric Baudelaire
With the war-torn Beirut cityscape as its backdrop—urban alleys, glistening beaches, abandoned buildings—Eric Baudelaire’s complex film, The Ugly One , unfolds in a time and place that vacillates among revolutionary narratives of the past, the fragile and ever-changing political situation of the present, and attempts to piece together the memories of those that live, or once lived, in the city. Conceived as a sequel to his documentary The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and 27 Years Without Images (2011), Baudelaire builds the structure of the film around a story told by Japanese New Wave film director Adachi, who also narrates the film. The plot line pivots around two lovers and former resistance fighters, Michel (played by Lebanese artist and actor Rabih Mroué) and Lili (Juliette Navis); their narratives fragment and reconfigure around the screenplay, which itself intertwines with Adachi’s own history, the act of making the film, and the self-conscious and sometimes improvisatory process of writing the script.
Currently based in Paris, Franco-American artist Eric Baudelaire has developed an oeuvre primarily composed of film, but which also includes photography, silkscreen prints, performance, publications and installations. In his research-based practice, the artist examines the relationship between images, past events and their documentation. Interested in the role of the cinematographic image as an index marker, Baudelaire creates narratives in which recorded facts serve as a starting point for an exploration of the unknown. In examining the changes in human behavior though interrogating the great political structures that govern the global, national and micro-communities, Baudelaire’s practice could be read through a bio-political perspective. Navigating the experience of urban living, the global, technical and economic dependencies of war, movement and the contemporary paradigm of geographical proximity and distance, Baudelaire’s practice evokes a hauntingly provocative perspective on the current political climate.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Caring for the Carers: How Malaysian artists working with communities hold space | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints Courtesy of Syarifah Nadhirah August 12, 2021 By Rahmah Pauzi (1,300 words, 5-minute read) I had forgotten how loaded the words “how are you,” or “apa khabar,” can be...
© » KADIST
Prabhakar Pachpute
2020Calling attention to campaigns for land rights, survival, and sovereignty, Prabhakar Pachpute’s recent works consider how farmers in India use their bodies in performative ways during acts of protest...
© » KADIST
Artur Zmijewski
2002Zeppelintribüne (2002) was shot near the Zepelintribune in Nuremberg, designed by Albert Speer, chief architect of the Third Reich...
© » KADIST
Rossella Biscotti
2014Rossella Biscotti’s “10×10” series investigates the relationship between demographics, data processing, textile manufacturing and social structure...
© » KADIST
Farah Al Qasimi
2022Um Al Dhabaab (Mother of Fog) by Farah Al Qasimi addresses the myth of Al Qasimi tribe-instigated piracy in the Gulf, perpetuated by the British Empire and upheld by contemporary western academia...
© » SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
Floral art by Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and other artists on display at private Deji Art Museum in Nanjing, China | South China Morning Post Advertisement Advertisement Art + FOLLOW Get more with my NEWS A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you Learn more The exhibition ‘Nothing Still About Still Lifes: Three Centuries of Floral Compositions’ at Nanjing;s Deji Art Museum features more than 100 modern and contemporary artworks, including (above) “Les Amoureux au Bouquet de Fleurs” (1935-1937), by Marc Chagall...
© » KADIST
L’exigence de la saudade Curated by Zasha Colah and Sumesh Sharma, Clark House Initiative, Bombay With: Padmini Chettur, Prajakta Potnis and Zamthingla Ruivah And the participation of: Nalini Malani, Krishna Reddy, Jean Bhownagary, Maarten Visser Intervention in the public space by: Justin Ponmany, Prabhakar Pachpute The exhibition brings together three artists from distant geographies within India – Padmini Chettur, a contemporary dancer, Prajakta Potnis, a visual artist, and Zamthingla Ruivah, a master weaver, whose works are conceptually engaged with remnant cultural forms, not as endangered traditions, rather to reinvent them in the present...
© » KADIST
Teresa Margolles
2014Stretching between San Pedro and the beach in Altata, Sinaloa, there is a 40 km road where there are three invisible borders controlled by rivalling armed groups...
