Levalet
/// Nobodies ///
From his first interventions in situ to his later displays, it's in his environment that -producer, scriptwriter, and director- Levalet carries out the casting of his playlets. Being himself constantly at the disposal of the artist, he's not afraid of enthronement!
Acclaimed by popular critics, won over and carried by the trumpet blast of Fame, five years of tours in France and other places made the entertainer feel that in the big spherical theater a comedy is played which, although human or divine, has put numerous actors in the background, as supporting actors at best.
« I'm nothing but a human being, strong, needing food, drinks, clothes. But I am invisible. Are you there yourself? Invisible! invisible! »
All ordinary actors have left are outfits, reflections of their social rank, of their professional status, from a class affiliation. Identifications heavy with prejudices, without regard for uniqueness. And even though « you can't judge a book by its cover », normative orders of promotion, advertising and institutions influence our dress codes.
Nobodies clothes and the absence of visible bodies are an open window on history, sometimes universal, sometimes specific. They leave the spectator the free will of projecting his real-life experiences, his emotions, his culture.
They bring us back to modern artists work such as Christian Boltanski or Liu Bolin. To Boltanski, a piece of clothing is a mark, a print of a past life. It's a constant of his work, particularly significant in the set-up La réserve at Centre Pompidou or Personnes for his Monumenta in Grand Palais. The Chinese artist Liu Bolin, as for himself, body and souls covered in paint, « hidden in the city », totally merges into those social unrest revealer landscapes.
Levalet, is a leopard that can't change his spots. With Perec's la Disparition ? Oulipo in mind, in which « suppressing the vowel [e] suppresses the origins and prevents memory reconstruction, then identity recovering » ?, he makes possible a disembodied human representation, opposite to art history in which the omnipresence of the body continues over the centuries. Playful, he crosses the Rubicon of the elusive portrait, echoing the cubist and surrealist variations!
The digital era just amplified the dehumanization phenomenon born with industrialization because « what's new in hopes and fears of the era of the machine, 's that the savior and the destroyer don't have a human face anymore ». This loss of bearings leads to a turning in on oneself, to communitarianism and to drifting into totalitarianism.
Social networks create and maintain the illusion of existence and sharing. Selfies becomes the intangible affirmation of the ego. « Suppose, for instance, a mirror... Hallucinations come so easily! » In the way of painted boards with holes of fairs and amusement parks, Levalet creates a portrait gallery on mirrors of a family dynasty with a chaotic path where we can assimilate, (re)find ourselves? «We are the nobodies / We wanna be somebodies»
Jean-Luc Hinsinger
In collusion with H.G. Wells, François Rabelais, Bruno Bettelheim, Marilyn Manson