2016 Highlights - Cannes Festival (11th to 22nd may 2016) & Bernard Gast's Paintless-Painting
Yes, we CANNES : the power of yellow !
The 69th Cannes Festival (11th to 22nd may 2016) was presided by George Miller. Made of images taken from Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Mépris, the official 2016 poster is an homage to the genius of film. On the yellow poster, of course a man climbs the famous steps facing the sea… But first of all, what is really fascinating if not this intense yellow ? Why this solar color in this 21st century without any actual optimism ? For the southerly light of Cannes, the enthousiastic and glowing nature of cinema ? However, the ambivalence of this color has been existing for centuries : the infamy endured by Jews to wear the yellow slice in the 13th century and the yellow star in the 20th century… The door of traitors painted in yellow in the 16th century… But also the spring reborn under the light… If yellow symbolizes the sun and joy, its negative meaning is based on lie and treachery. The 2016 poster of the festival includes the whole and ambivalent power of yellow that Kandinsky considered as the “most earthly, most eccentric color with its violence sometimes trying and aggressive”*. So, let’s assume the ambivalence by confronting the poster with two works : “Nu d’aurochs” (Nude of aurochs – prehistoric buffalo) and “Keep you smiling” (original title in English) !!! The first one for this 69 edition… (lol) and the second, for the required smile of the festival (lol bis)…
* KANDINSKY Vladimir (1866-1944) – Du spirituel dans l'art, et dans la peinture en particulier (Concerning the spiritual in art) – Folio Essais
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Bernard Gast's Paintless-Painting: the spirit of painting
Why does he paint with cinema ? Both for its universality and to create a Paintless-Painting. Such an universality in the films’ stories ! Harry Potter or Star wars speak all over the world… Cinema expresses a collective imaginary field and, in the same time, touches on everybody’s intimacy. Everything is in it : intellect, perception and feeling.
The second reason lies in his thought on art history. Using pictorially, images taken from movies, he looks for replacing painting at the core of the artistic process. How ? Having questioned for a long time the crucial issue of art in the 20th century : which representation in painting ? Bernard Gast offers a singular answer : by realizing a Paintless-Painting… But what does it mean ?
Paintless-Painting is an aesthetic concept made up by the artist. A conception that he condenses thereby : “I paint a Paintless-Painting with 35mm movie stills”. Indeed, with the only material of pieces of films, his artistic vocabulary suggests and constantly refers to painting. While freeing himself from the materiality of painting (and finally producing one photographic print), his work fundamentally echoes the spirit of painting. Painting with cinema allows him to reach more pictoriality. Bernard Gast brings forth a Paintless-Painting from cinema to give birth (again) to painting… without any actual painting matter.