Warm Festival – Emeric Lhuisset – Maydan Hundred Portraits – Opening of the exhibiton on June, Wednesday 1st 2015 in Duplex100m2
« Maydan – Hundred Portraits » – Emeric Lhuisset
On Maydan Square in Kiev, French photographer Émeric Lhuisset created a compelling series of portraits of the demonstrators. He asked all of them two questions, which they answered on a sheet of paper:
– What would you like to see happening now?
– What do you think will happen?
With ‘Maydan – Hundred Portraits’, Lhuisset introduces us to the faces of the revolution in February 2014. The protests united thousands of Ukrainians who were tired of the government’s corruption and the Russian grip on their country. The situation escalated when protesters were fired upon by the authorities, leading to the death of more than 100 people – referred to as the ‘Heavenly Hundred’. By combining his background in geopolitics with visual arts, Lhuisset questions the representation of conflicts in mass media with an alternative approach.
Emeric Lhuisset grew up in suburban Paris and lives between Middle East and Paris. He has participated in numerous exhibitions and interventions. In addition to his art practice, he hosts a cycle of conferences between the Institute of Political Studies of Paris and New York University about “contemporary art & geopolitics”. From Kabul to Kirkuk through the mountains of Pakistan, Iraq, and Colombia, Lhuisset seeks to raise questions about the representation of conflict and how we perceive it.
Sponsors: Agnès b. endowment fund – Mondriaan Fund – Paradox
Emeric Lhuisset – Short biography
Born in 1983, Emeric Lhuisset grew up in suburban Paris. He lives between Middle East and Paris (France).
Gradueted in arts (Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris – Ensba) and in geopolitics (University Panthéon-Sorbonne / Ecole Normale Superieur d’Ulm – Center for geostrategy). He has participated in numerous exhibitions and interventions in France and abroad (Centre Pompidou, Art Dubaï, Centquatre in Paris, Frac Alsace, ARCO in Madrid, Rencontres d’Arles, The Running Horse in Beirut, Tate Modern…).
In addition to his art practice, he teaches at the Institute of Political Studies of Paris (Sciences Po) and hosts a cycle of conferences between Sciences Po and New York University (NYU) in Paris about contemporary art & geopolitics.
He considers his work as an artistic transcription of geopolitical analyses.
From Kabul to Kirkuk through the mountains of Pakistan, Iraq, and Colombia, Emeric Lhuisset seeks to raise questions about the representation of conflict and how we perceive it. He employs a variety of approaches, including replaying their own reality to a group of guerilla fighters, staging scenes based on paintings from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, filming 24 hours of the life of a Free Syrian Army fighter near to Alep, engaging with the question of Soft power and the dissemination of the American style of life as a factor of influence in Iraq, temporarily transforming fighters’ weapons into everyday objects as a means of bringing more comfort to them, and exploring the link between video games and war zones with the FARC in Columbia. Emeric Lhuisset has also been found playing the role of war reporter in Kabul’s old royal palace, accompanied by an Afghan soldier to whom he gave a fake plastic Kalashnikov covered in embroidery, and on the border between West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem offering kippas made with Palestinian keffiyehs.
Diverting the codes, Emeric Lhuisset asks us to question our own perceptions of reality and its representation.
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