In 1968, Arts Magazine ran
a piece by Mel Bochner entitled "Alfaville, Godard's Apocalypse". Far
from being a straightforward synopsis and critique of the French-Swiss director’s
film, Bochner's article takes the form of a complex composition of quotes and
comments, excerpts and stills from the film, broken up into multiple boxes on the
pages of the magazine. It is not merely an account of Jean-Luc Godard’s reception
in 1960s America, for it also attests to the assimilation of formal structures
and ideological (more than political) questions at the core of his cinematographic
practice.
Picking up where Bochner’s unique
and yet representative piece left off, the fifth issue of (SIC) explores Godard’s reception in the
US art scene from 1965 to the 1990s. Godard's cinema seems to have exerted an
exceptional and enduring power of attraction on a number of his contemporaries
there, from Lawrence Weiner to Martha Rosler and Susan Sontag. While fleshing
out the historical, aesthetic and ideological context of this reception, the essays
also look at how Godard's films found food for thought in the practice of many
American artists and intellectuals.
Sylvie Eyberg, for her
part, provides subtle visual responses to the essays. Using cropped and
reframed shots from Godard's films and playfully arranging her images to impinge
on the borders and margins of the pages, the artist creates a free-form visual
commentary running through the whole review. Its "silence" offers a different take on Godard's oeuvre.
Editors: Olivier Mignon and
Raphaël Pirenne
Essays by Antoine de
Baecque, Mel Bochner, Eric de Bruyn, Larisa Dryansky, David Evans, Olivier
Mignon and Raphaël Pirenne, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Susan Sontag, Martha Rosler and
Lawrence Weiner
Art intervention by Sylvie
Eyberg
Published in 2012
In French
23.5 x 31 cm
112 pages
ISBN: 978-2-930667-03-4
EAN:
9782930667034
