'Speaking to the Penguins,' 2007
Black-and-white infra-red photograph on aluminium in Perspex
133 x 200 cm
Copyright Philippe Parreno, courtesy Haunch of Venison
Le Ballon Rouge (The Red Balloon), 1956, is a film about a lonely little boy who befriends a large red balloon with a mind of its own. Although the film has no dialogue, a whimsical narrative unfolds as the boy and the balloon enter a helium-fuelled adventure through a quintessentially Parisian cityscape. While the work of Philippe Parreno is often a similarly meandering journey through a faintly poeticized universe, it is sometimes undercut with darker visions of the modern world - and this is certainly the case with 'What Do You Believe, Your Eyes, Or My Words?' at Haunch of Venison until 12 May.
The exhibition is in three parts and The Writer (2007), a small video of an antique mechanical doll, shown on all levels of the gallery, serves as the leitmotif that holds the show together. The video, and the tremendously hyperbolized scratching sound of quill pen on paper that it generates, takes on the role of wall text in the exhibition, and it is certainly a more interesting substitute. The use of image instead of word is particularly appropriate for this exhibition, which, far from didacticism, wrestles with miscommunication, stifled voices, and gagged expressions. This idea is most clearly articulated in 'Speech Bubble,' a piece that fills the ceiling of the top floor of the gallery with black helium balloons in the shape of comic speech bubbles. As a group, the balloons resemble a mass of hovering vultures and have a decidedly sinister effect, as if they are filled with sullied utterances and profane imaginations, or perhaps address issues of censorship and fear of expression in today's 'terror' climate. Previous versions of the project have featured white balloons, a chromatic difference that has the rather opposite effect of suggesting free expression and dialogue.
Somewhat harder to relate to the exhibition's theme, or perhaps just less effective, are a series of illuminated drawings on the first floor. Depicting the Japanese Manga character Ann Lee, French Actor Melvil Poupaud, Emilia Martinez Suarez, a worker at a Mexican co-operative, and Parreno as drawn by his six-year-old self, the animations flicker in an unsettling way, moving without changing. Each simple black line drawing is one frame in a series of frames, and the cells are changed every day so that over the course of the exhibition, an animation unfolds. The frustration of the animation's painstakingly slow development is seen on each of the characters' faces. Half open mouths and frozen faces are stuck in a perpetually silent stutter. However, it is difficult to relate the characters to one another and they never come alive to the extent that is needed to win our sympathies.
A slightly different vein of miscommunication, also on the top floor of the gallery, is Speaking to the Penguins (2007), an infrared photograph of Parreno delivering a two-hour lecture to a colony of Penguins on a beach in Patagonia. The idea is to show that sometimes language can be devoid of meaning. While the other pieces in the show have a tragic quality about them, this one is considerably less heavy-hearted, perhaps because it is the only work in the show that doesn't suggest deliberately thwarted communication. While the speech bubbles have been sealed, the animations stunted, and the animatronics doll relentlessly programmed, Parreno's lecture to the penguins is simply an exploration of miscommunication, and a beautifully surreal moment.
Parreno often works within constructed realities- sometimes his own, and sometimes the world he sees around him. However, his skepticism of the real often leads him into dreamlike, virtual worlds. It is perhaps best to experience Parreno's work like the boy in Le Ballon Rouge, as a journey through a world that is at once phantasmagorical and true to life, and where the answer to 'What Do You Believe, Your Eyes, Or My Words?' will almost certainly never be found.
Charlotte Bonham-Carter
'What Do You Believe, Your Eyes, Or My Words?'
Philippe Parreno
Until 12 May
Haunch of Venison
6 Haunch of Venison Yard
off Brook Street
London W1K 5ES
T: +44 (0)207 495 5050
Both images: 'The Writer,' 2007
DVD, duration 3:58 min
17.4 x 12 x 2 cm
Charlotte Bonham-Carter is an independent critic and curator based in London. She contributes to a number of international arts publications, including Flash Art, Contemporary, Art Review, and Tank.
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