Philippe Parreno "June 8, 1968 – September 7, 2009" Retrospective

Two days after U.S. President Kennedy was assassinated, his coffin was transported by train from New York to the capital, Washington, D.C., as countless Americans along the route paid their highest respects. 70mm film, 8 minutes, 2009. Philippe Parreno "June 8, 1968 – September 7, 2009" Retrospective: On view at the Centre Pompidou’s South Gallery from June 3 to September 7. Born in 1964, Philippe Parreno is one of Europe’s most representative artists of the 1990s, frequently collaborating with peers such as Pierre Huyghe or Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. Their innovative explorations are grounded in dramatic worlds of cinema, video, and television imagery. Parreno excels at mastering theatrical and cinematic rules, employing unusual transformations and displacements across different forms of projected images, between reality and virtuality, addressing issues of time and space circulation with considerable literary quality.

The "June 8, 1968 – September 7, 2009" retrospective is a highly theatrical and conceptual exhibition that clearly marks time and space through its theme. Philippe Parreno continues to think about and organize extraordinary works according to rhythmic timing, constructing a series of exhibition spaces composed of diverse, changing light and images. The exhibition resembles a festive theater (with a large red carpet laid out). Despite being a retrospective, it features very few works—naturally, this is a conceptual retrospective. When motorized curtains lower on schedule, films begin playing in darkness; when lights come on, other works are hidden in the dark. The exhibition thus presents itself in rhythmically alternating cycles.

Parreno’s works are broad and open-ended; images, objects, sculptures, installations, and various themes all point toward time and space. The exhibition functions like product models for media, theater, concepts, cinema, and television imagery. In this extraordinary retrospective, the artist hopes to create a new holiday, a pagan event as significant as Christmas. The exhibition begins with media: the entrance welcomes visitors with "Signs," resembling nightclub flashing light installations. Entering the vast exhibition space, a large red carpet is laid out, warmly resembling a festive banquet titled "January 31, 1977," referencing the opening date of the Centre Pompidou. Clearly, the Centre Pompidou is constituted by four colors: blue for air conditioning, green for pipes, yellow for electrical conduits, and red for elevators; red also symbolizes the channels for personnel and artworks. Golden helium balloons titled "Speech Bubbles" float across the entire ceiling, with the red carpet and golden balloons constructing a carnival scene. This work was inspired by the imagination of union protest marches, where petitions and slogans could be written directly onto balloons.

On the left wall is a phosphorescent image installation titled "Fade to black." When the lights go out, figures vaguely appear in the darkness. First created in 2003, this work is a special gift by the artist for this retrospective (its 15th presentation), presenting phenomena of fleeting moments between the visible and invisible, existence and non-existence, light and darkness, as the artist continues to explore conditions for creation. Two wall-leaning installations titled "No Longer Reality (Continuing and Ending)" feature famous modern art images (such as Modigliani’s nudes, Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup cans, Malevich’s figures, Picasso’s distorted bodies and still lifes) cut out and mounted on wooden strips, with artificial snow falling periodically from the ceiling below, creating a snowy white landscape. This is a work the artist participated in for the Venice Biennale in 1993, here updated and reconfigured. Next to it is "Parade – Young Genius Series," derived from iconic cartoon character images from contemporary comic books, cut out and mounted on wooden strips to become puppets manipulable by children. These two series are regularly paraded by children from the Centre Pompidou’s Children’s Drawing Class, creating a carnival atmosphere that is highly theatrical and metaphorical, poetic, and imbued with the meaning of action and performance.

In the main exhibition hall, amidst a joyful atmosphere, a Christmas tree adorned with lights and decorations appears on a large red carpet—titled "Time Tension." This was the artist’s first Christmas tree installation in 1993, titled "This artwork is considered a work of art for 11 months of the year, becoming a Christmas tree in December." It questions the relationship between folk ritualistic objects and the function of artworks, humorously exploring the conditions and protocols of art. Finally, everyone sits or lies on the red carpet. Motorized windows around the perimeter lower one by one, plunging the room into darkness. On the large screen ahead, the film "June 8, 1968" (70mm) begins playing. A train travels through cities, towns, countryside, and lakes; at every place passed, curious crowds arrive to quietly watch the train pass slowly. Without knowing the theme, viewers would not understand the context. The film reconstructs the historical episode of June 8, 1968, two days after U.S. President Kennedy’s assassination, when his coffin was transported by train from New York to Washington, D.C., with numerous Americans along the route paying their highest respects in silent tribute.