SOON AT /SAC (Berthelot)
CHANTAL BY US
Chantal Akerman - interdisciplinary biographies in a theatre of care
with/by Paula Dunker, Nicoleta Lefter, Mihaela Michailov, Katia Pascariu, Laura Săvuțiu, Vlaicu Golcea in collaboration with Ema Onofrei, Laurence Ermacova and Monica Stoica, Alex Radu and with works by Mircea Suciu
Chantal by us, Chantal Akerman and her My Mother Laughs. Interdisciplinary biographies in a theatre of care. A series of performances, video-sound installations and images-objects in the space of /SAC Berthelot, starting November 12. So many rooms as many situations, so many walls as many instances. They tell stories about transgenerational trauma, ageing and vulnerability, the work of caretaking, the tense relationship between art, real space/intimate space/ socio-political space and work – all entering in a dialogue with the vast and unique work of an emblematic artist of the sec. XX, about the way this work is perceived today and resonates with the local and intimate-personal realities of the artists and performers involved. Theatrical exploration, interdisciplinary research laboratory, hybrid attempts to react to art through art, talking about life and death.
“Chantal by us” is thus a de/re-structured and dis/re-composed experimental-exploratory theatre project in an exhibition (gallery) space, presenting performances - by/with Paula Dunker, Katia Pascariu and Nicoleta Lefter -, audio and video installations - by Vlaicu Golcea and Laura Savuțiu -, performative video works - by/with Paula Dunker, Katia Pascariu, Mihaela Michailov and Laura Savuțiu -, with a radical, dramatic counterpoint in visual linguistics (and stylistics) realised through the works of Mircea Suciu which intertwine with/ continue/ prolong/ verticalize the themes of the performative works in “Chantal by Us”. His works comment (even through their titles) and operate in a similar way with the reopening/ reinterpretation/ recontextualization of major/historical visual-cultural landmarks (temporalities) in the present, in the personal/ artistic life, in the now of the works and their presentation (as co-present temporealities) at /SAC (Berthelot).
Chantal Akerman (1950, Brussels – 2015, Paris), filmmaker, writer, and multimedia artist, was a pioneer in feminist and experimental cinema. Born to Holocaust survivors from Poland, the generational trauma of this experience was a continuing theme in her work as well the exploration of her Jewish identity. In 2022, Sight and Sound magazine ranked her film Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) as the greatest film of all time. For the first time in 70 years, this renowned survey, conducted once every decade, placed a film directed by a woman in the top spot, one that takes a conscious and radically feminist approach to cinema. Akerman’s career spanned fiction and autofiction films, documentaries, short and feature-length films, and later, after 1995, video installations exhibited at Jeu de Paume, MoMA, Centre Pompidou, Documenta 11, Palais de Tokyo, the Venice Biennale, and the São Paulo Biennale. Regarded as one of the most important European directors of her generation, Akerman created over 15 video installations, stating: “I want the viewer to have a physical experience through the time used in each frame. To have this physical experience that time unfolds in you, that time enters you.”
‘‘[...] why you start with a tragicomedy in which you play yourself.
And why you seem to abandon that in favour of experimental and silent films.
Why no sooner are those finished across the ocean than you come back here, and back
to narration.
Why do you stop acting and make a musical comedy.
Why do you make documentaries and then adapt Proust.
Why do you also write, a play, a story.
Why do you make films about music.
And finally another comedy.
What’s more, you’ve also been making installations for a while. Without really thinking of
yourself as an artist...
Because of the word artist.’’
Chantal Akerman in Cahiers du cinema, 2004, p.10
ABOUT THE WORKS
Laura Săvuțiu, Pillows on Pillars
2024, video installation
Chantal Akerman —pre-eminent filmmaker, artist, writer; better yet: Chantal Akerman —translator. Of and between times, spaces, media, stories, personal narratives. Of margins to and for the center. Of intimacies into collective concerns. Always at the limit, always at the border and the edge between one thing and another.
“Pillows on Pillars” echoes a theme that spans much of her work, namely: the artist’s self-representation as no less than a whirling vacillation between disclosing one’s intimate, more-than-domestic space and appropriating—and thereby bringing closer to oneself—outside media, felt as external, even: pernicious. It’s this constant to-and-fro that my installation aims to represent, between the familiar and the unknown, mania and depression, noise and its absence.
Mihaela Michailov, Letter to Father
2024, video
“Letter to Father” is an answer offered to the emotional embroidery, to the weaving of thoughts and sensations that Chantal Akerman dedicates to her mother.
“Letter to Father” is just like the whirlwind of letting go of someone who you are never ready to say goodbye to. Because you feel that a part of your life is reaching a final point and there are no words to put an end to it.
“Letter to Father” is the peculiarity of captivity and release/liberation.
Paula Dunker, Chantal Akerman par Chantal Akerman par Paula Dunker x Laura Săvuțiu x Katia Pascariu
2024, video + performance
A dark-haired woman in a dark jacket and pants enters and sits down on the chair front right. Such is the beginning of ”Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman” (1996), an episode of the venerable French public-television series ”Cinéaste de notre temps”. As Chantal Akerman (the woman in the chair) explains, she proposes a self-portrait “with the idea of making my old films talk, of treating them as if they were rushes that I’d edit to create a new film, which would be my portrait of me.”
As Akerman initially envisioned, the films—fifteen of them presented in nonchronological order, like a vast audiovisual stream of consciousness—are left to do most of the talking. They tell stories of time and memory, composed and recomposed from static shots and frontal images in an ever-expanding repertoire. An overlay of experimental films, dramatic features, musical comedies and documentaries.
Paula Dunker's work, produced with Laura Săvuțiu and Katia Pascariu, starts from this self-portrait and Akerman's statement that "I prefer it when someone else talks about my films" and is accompanied by a performative act.
Vlaicu Golcea,
Tè là où, maman?
2024, audio-visual installation
From a universal human perspective, the themes of attachment and abandonment trauma offer profound insights into how we navigate relationships and personal history. Many of us carry the imprints of early attachments that may not fully satisfy our need for security, creating a lifelong tension between intimacy and independence. This tension often manifests as a struggle to form or maintain close relationships, marked by a fear of either rejection or engulfment. These attachment wounds are intricately woven into our behaviour, shaping how we perceive safety and stability in connection with others. Furthermore, the impact of unspoken generational traumas—legacies of historical upheavals—often emerges in subtle, everyday family dynamics. These emotional inheritances shape our reactions, expectations, and how we unconsciously recreate past relational patterns. In a broader sense, the universality of attachment struggles reflects how we collectively carry previous generations' unprocessed grief, fear, and resilience. This shared emotional heritage influences how we approach both love and autonomy in our lives today. Our audio-visual installation addresses these complex themes. Created in partnership with Teatrul Postnațional Interfonic, this collective artwork—conceived and curated by Vlaicu Golcea—also brings together the works and voice of visual artist Ema Onofrei, the poem and site-specific intervention of French poet Laurence Ermacova, the visual poem and translation by Monica Stoica, the upcycled sculpture made from PET bottles by Cristina Milea, and the video presence of artist Kinga Ötvös, all implemented and technically supervised by Alexandru Andrei. Together, these diverse points of view converge to create a rich, multi-layered narrative that invites the audience to explore the complex interplay of attachment, memory, and identity.
Vlaicu Golcea: 9-channel video installation (average duration 30 min); 7-channel audio installation (average duration 15 min); use of waste materials; recovered materials; AI-assisted photographic generation
Ema Onofrei: voice; pencil drawings; AI-assisted photographic generation
Laurence Ermacova: poem “conversations”; site-specific written intervention on the floor
Monica Stoica: video poem "Sightseeing"; Romanian translation of the poem “conversations”
Cristina Milea: wing sculpture upcycled from PET
Kinga Ötvös: performer
Alexandru Andrei: technical implementation and assistance
Katia Pascariu, Lessons
2024, video, photo collage, text
I wanted to steal from Chantal... from the wonderful Chantal Akerman, I wanted to borrow from her, at least for a short while, the comfort brought about by the discomfort of honesty. I don't wish to sound complicated, but that's how it feels. The truth about me is that I am lazy, tired, sad - or, perhaps, just melancholic. I am a person who always felt good in the company of older people and who sought them out, sought out their stories, as well as the clarity of those eyes that have already lived for a very long time. I feel like I am carrying stories and wounds which aren't mine. In fact, I feel that I can rest better and feel lighter when I'm the one being told stories, and not the other way around. I miss all the grandparents and the aunts of the world.
The video starts from a performance that took place in 2023, having been invited by CNDB, as part of Iridescent - Ideas for Planet Earth and a series of materials gathered over the past 15 years along the activities of the group Vârsta4; besides, in 2024 we had a series of artistic sessions related to the project, together with residents of Centrul Moses Rosen.
Nicoleta Lefter x Katia Pascariu x Vlaicu Golcea, MY Mother Laughs
2024, performance
The idea for the performance came to me after reading Chantal Akerman's “My Mother Laughs”. I picked out moments of significant vulnerability, the things that you never talk about and nobody prepares you for, but which we all go through or will go through one day. The performance is about the disappearance of a loved one, about mourning, about death. We enter an uncensored intimacy of a woman who will go through the death of her mother, without pitying ourselves or becoming melodramatic, instead placing an emotion under the microscope, expanding it over the course of 45 minutes, only for it to afterwards get lost throughout the noise of Calea Victoriei.
Mircea Suciu, born in 1978 in Baia Mare, Romania, is a Cluj-Napoca-based artist known for his deeply evocative and complex works that explore themes of anxiety, violence, and oppression. Creating using both art-historical and pop-culture references, Suciu has crafted a distinctive visual language where figuration and abstraction meet. His technique is both innovative and meticulous, involving the transfer of photographic images onto canvases, which he then builds upon with layers of acrylic and oil paints. This approach, which he refers to as “monotype”, allows the artist to achieve a nuanced balance between composition, colour, and texture. Suciu’s art resists the conventional idea of a single, unified image, instead embracing a multilayered and often fragmented representation that mirrors the complexities of the modern visual culture. Growing up under the pressures of a communist regime, he developed a fascination with the role of images as tools for both manipulation and liberation. His work reflects an ongoing investigation into the power dynamics embedded in visual representation and how imagery influences collective perception.
Period: 12.11.24 - 25.01.25
Thursday-Saturday 16-20
/SAC - Str. Berthelot 5, interphone 10
Opening: 12.11.24, 7 pm
