« A journey back in time which defines the present and determines the future. He asks us to experience our civilization again. Classic, modern, its symbols and values that once taught are still teaching, influenced and still influence humanity. »
Excerpt from the commentary of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games Ceremony
The proposal is structured around the project Agones (which means “games” in Greek), realized in 2018 in Athens. The film and the objects that make up this project come from a process of reinterpretation of the opening ceremony of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. For that, Pauline Bastard gathered a team with which she recreated the show in the infrastructures. Olympic Games abandoned for 14 years. Caryatids, a centaur, an angel, Athena, Eros … The costumed participants prepare together the representation and work their characters, their attitudes. The project takes us into different spaces, in which the strange community of ghostly figures questions the story of the show. In what order did the characters arrive? Was Eros blue? Did Apollo have wings? The participants seem to reconstruct a very distant memory. The ceremony itself was inspired by representations of ancient figures, frescoes, statues. The participants thus try to reproduce and identify the protagonists and the stakes of the past event. Pauline Bastard’s projects imitate, replay. She dismantles and rereads the stories to understand them and let see their strangeness.
Pauline Bastard – Gravé dans la Robe / Engraved in the Dress
October 19 – November 23, 2018
Galerie Eva Hober
156 boulevard Haussmann
75008 Paris
