'Sous les pavés la plage/Beneath the paved stones the beach'
An illiterate and spectacle like translation of infamous may 68 quote: 'sous les pavés la plage' From the cobblestones is emerging a bikini girl and a malibu sunset.
Original soundtrack by Nicolas Chausseau
(Essay by Merille Worsley)
Amélie Guérin's work seems as much a curatorial collecting and assemblage of found objects as it is an artistic practice. Her installations, which have incorporated a multiplicity of elements like readymade things, crafted objects, paint, paper, photographs and drawings, interact with sound, light and space. Her meshing of media allows the work to engage with recent histories of painting, sculpture and architecture to produce environments bathed in juxtaposed symbols. In Beneath the paved stones the beach (2008) Guérin incorporates in a 'decorated' environment a video monitor that play back the same video in a loop. Her use of video exemplifies an interesting exploration where she is able to use time-based media in a sculptural way. With the (soundtrack provided by artist Nicolas Chausseau, Guerin seems to be critically chipping away at the notion of linear time. The fusion of undulating synthesizer oscillations and a digitized sequence of images overlaid with text gives the work a similar feel to a music video for some unknown early '80's synth-pop group. Something seems to be missing. The title of the work alludes to May 68 infamous quote 'sous les pavés la plage' that was adopted by students during the riots. By drawing on this quote Guerin recapitulates a story from the past and pastes it into an aesthetic of a later decade. By so doing, the artist is clearly rejecting a linear narrative, and presents history as never ending cycle of retelling.
From TRACES exhibition catalogue)
Beneath the paved stones the beach: Video installation, 2008
