Pierre Bismuth: Collages Fit for General Audiences

"Collages for Men"(2001-2002) consist of pictures of naked women taken from pornographic magazines that the artist has clothed by affixing to them a sheet of white paper cut in the shape of a bathing suit, a dress or some other outfit. In dressing these women, the artist seems to misunderstand the functional purpose of pornography, intervening merely to replace something that was missing as if by accident or mistake. At the same time, this creative misunderstanding transforms the nature of the original picture: the generic object of desire becomes the portrait of a woman.

In "Respect the Dead" (video, 2001-2002) Bismuth edits feature films so that the film sequences are cut immediately after the first death occurs on screen. As in “collages for men” the artist’s refusal to understand the normal meaning and function of death in cinema, the way it creates a certain setting or serves the development of the plot, changes the balance of the film and gives identity and significance to otherwise unimportant characters and events. Most of the films “edited” in this way last no more than a few minutes.

Pierre Bismuth was nominated for the first Marcel Duchamp Prize in France in 2001. He has had solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle, Vienna (1997), the Centre d’art Contemporain de Bretigny (2001) and the Kunsthalle, Basel (2001). His group exhibitions include 49th Venice Biennale and Manifesta 4, Frankfurt in 2002.