Modern Painters

BLOUINARTINFO.COM JUNE/JULY 2016MODERN PAINTERS 35``````ON OUR RADAR``````A LETTER THAT Paris-basedmultimedia artist JulienPrévieux received in 2006 wasof the sort that everyone dreads:“I regret to inform you...,” itbegan. He would not be offeredthe job of public transit driverin the city of Domont, France.“Wishing you every success inyour continued efforts, we aresorry not to have better news foryou.” The missive’s conciliatorytone is comical in the context ofPrévieux’s actual job application.“I would prefer not to be goodwith people or courteous. Iwould prefer not to be punctual,”he had written, with inadvisablehonesty. “I would prefer not towork from 6:30 to 9:30 and from``````4:00 to 8:00 everyday exceptweekends...” The epistolaryback-and-forth is part ofthe artist’s “Letters of Non-Application” series: Failedrequests for employment, allanswered by well-meaning HRreps. While the artist’s bus-driverapplication might lead you toassume he’s lazy, other of hisworks are almost absurdlylabor-intensive. In Post-post-production (extraits), 2004,Prévieux appropriates severalscenes from 1999’s James Bondmovie, The World Is Not Enough,and heaps on additional specialeffects: Seen on fire or blowingup are helicopters, floralarrangements, and even Jeff``````Koons’s Puppy. Prévieux hasrecently turned his attention tohow humans interact withtechnology. In What Shall WeDo Next? (Sequence #2), 2014—on view at the Rhode IslandSchool of Design Museumin Providence, throughNovember 13—he looks at themotions by which we interactwith new technologies. A cast ofsix dancers demonstrates thegestures—recently patented bytech companies—but withoutthe relevant gadgets or devices.(Amusingly, some of these gesturesare purely hypothetical—thepatents have been submitted inanticipation of future technologicaldesigns, like a proposed Sony``````wig that would enable the userto navigate a slideshow.) Whilethis is all absurd at face value, acurrent of true discomfort runsunderneath: When did ourpersonal movements become socodified, literally belonging tothe people who systematizedevelopment? Another film atRISD, Patterns of Life, 2015,begins with the narratorrecounting her investigationsinto grace, deducing an equationfor the virtue: if “time is money,unnecessary motion is money lostforever.” Obliviously, it seems,we’re being quantified every day.Prévieux removes the blinders,forcing us to laugh a little at ourown unwitting complicity. —JH``````GESTURAL ABSTRACTIONSThe 2014 Prix Marcel Duchamp winner’s technological dances``````TINO SEHGAL’S FIRST and only public work will go on view this summer in Manhattan’s CityHall Park as part of a show that looks at the nonwritten, nonspoken side of language. “TheLanguage of Things,” organized by the Public Art Fund, was inspired largely by a 1916 WalterBenjamin essay, a “really bizarre text that talks about how there’s nothing animate or inanimatewithin nature that doesn’t partake in language. It’s always trying to communicate its beingoutward,” says co-curator Emma Enderby. Each day throughout the show’s duration, June 28through September 29, two alternating female vocalists will serenade visitors as part ofSehgal’s This You, which was first performed at the Tamayo Museum in Mexico City in 2010.“They’ll feed off interactions and people they witness and sing a song that represents thatmoment,” ranging from folk ballads to contemporary pop hits, Enderby explains. Elsewhere,Carol Bove will mount the phallic structure Lingam, 2015; Claudia Comte will examine theletter U through the lens of abstract modernism; and Chris Watson will play a 90-minuterecording of a flock of starlings. —RCWalter Benjamin spurs a public showOBJECT TALKPUBLIC ART``````Julien PrévieuxWhat Shall We DoNext? (Sequence#2), 2014. HD video,16 min. 47 sec.``````Carol BoveLingam, 2015.Petrified woodand steel,10 x 5 x 3¼ ft.FROM TOP: JULIEN PREVIEUX AND JOUSSE ENTREPRISE, PARIS; CAROL BOVE, MACCARONE NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES, AND DAVID ZWIRNER NEW YORK/LONDON