Denis Brun creates collage and assemblage. · rehearsal of a lesson. Behind the scientific ... He also learnt off by ... of myself and of my new invisible friend.

Denis Brun creates collage and assemblage.He also makes “soft paintings”, covered inskins of transparent plastic under which aresecured tickets, flyers and little souvenirs ofdaily life. Denis Brun sews and stickstogether pieces of cloth and shiny sticky tapewhich turn into dresses for men and women.He writes short stories and takes photos. Hesamples and composes music on computers.He also makes videos.

For the artist, there is no hierarchy in allthese approaches. He says that “each onegives in its own way a means ofapprehending reality, each one brings itsown specific torment.” In spite of thisdeclared equality, the video seems to hold aparticular place, perhaps because it is “amedium which has not yet been ossified.”The series entitled ‘The shortest path fromthe weather vane to the satellite’, throwsperhaps the best light on the rigorousexactingness on which the artist’s system ofinterlocking pieces is based.Representative of three successive stages,this group of videos also shows that themedium is ideally suited for the explorationof a field that Denis Brun favours: the zone ofinteraction between the self and thecollective imagination – between the filmthat I play in my head and the events which Iconsciously and unwittingly absorb from theoutside world.

To start with, the artist has set himself strictrules in order to protect his field ofexploration from the excesses of “the self”.The first video, ‘My Lost Paradise’, has thehaiku as its model: a very short time span,and an encounter of sounds and imagescoming from different sources. Anotherconstraint: the sources are ready-made, andthe image is treated in low-fi: with a thin re-recording in black and white the video losesall immediacy in favour of recollectiveimpressions. A stroboscopic effect is createdby the over-presence of the structure of thenarrative, which takes the place of the storyit announces. Here, this device cuts anynarrative thread, but not the sensation of anarrative; in the same way, the ready-madesources in no way erase the feeling that acertain subjectivity is at work (a subjectivitywhich dreams of the skaters amazingliberty): An “I” is constructed from thisinformation, information which it receives asso many blows. The following sequence ofvideos retains most of these principles butprogressively opens up to a more suppletemporality, enabling the deployment ofnarrative functions : because it is indeed theworkings of the narration that emerge in

their full diversity , and not the linearity ofcausal stories. Freestyle Mental 99 and“Petite Mutinerie du Printemps” last for theduration of pieces of well known music (byJames Brown, by Kraftwerk), with the wholegamut of personal and collective emotionsthat their popularity carries. Contrary to thepromotional production of a musical clipwhich must reinforce the aura of a group orsinger, the images of the two videos havebeen chosen with “objective” occurrencesin mind: television news, scientificdocumentaries. As we can also see in thenext video ‘Doppelganger’, these images,disconnected from their commentary,reinvested with emotionally chargedsonority, call out to each other and outlinenarrations that fade away or collide together.These images do not in any way create ahierarchy between surprise, feelings of lossor speed, hurricanes, knowledge, fieryclouds, the tempo of Kraftwerk, the sexyvoice of James Brown, or the playfulrehearsal of a lesson. Behind the scientificimages, an artistic vision develops a world ofcatastrophes and phantasmagoria whichquestions the role of man in a microscopicexistence, and in a planetary macrocosm.

Both ‘Doppelganger ‘and ‘The And’, are moreample than the precedent videos, and graftmusical compositions and personal imagesonto television or film extracts in the mannerof cadavres exquis. Texts are fitted in, as iscolour itself, rather like the news or ads onthe surface of an uncertain awareness,suggesting a sense in order to gain reason.Opening onto an interspace betweenconscience and fantasy, these videosnevertheless contain lucid and humorousdistancing. For example the flying saucerwhich has come as if to puncture terrestrialelements, appears to be an amusingmetaphor of scientific observation. In ‘TheAnd’; this observation takes the form ofRobert Smith’s insisting eye, a Robert Smithwho is so animal behind his mane , but sohuman with his art of stratagems ( make-up).As for the woman who moves in an unsettledsleep, she becomes the screen on which themeteorology of the human mind can bevisualised, and also perhaps a figure of thevideo itself, both a producer of fantasies anda support for the projections. In a certainmanner, Denis Brun’s videos update thesurrealist quest in their syncopated, layered,broken-up narrations, which intermingle theimaginary, from science to science-fiction,from skate to punk.

Sylvie CoellierIn Prêts à Prêter: Acquisitions and activity report 2000/2004

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PERPETUAL WONDER PROJECTBy TOSHIRO BISHOKO

This attempt to reflect on an object – or howto create neo-minimalism using four ciderbottle corks (2) and a cheap vase (1) –produced for a design competition which Ididn’t go in for, was transformed as timewent on:Into a recomposed still-life (3) for the needsof a photo, into a recyclable post-Halloweenlamp (4 and 5), into a digital painting (6) thatwas never printed. The unmentionable, andnot yet healed, goal of this initial project: toproduce millions of copies of the vase,conquer the Asian market and get rich.

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Toshiro Bishoko was born straight off at theage of 17, in general indifference and thecotton-wool secrecy of a false veterinaryclinic specialising in artificial insemination.At this time there was already talk of anextra-terrestrial plot , although the realextent wasn’t really known, and it was in thisunstable geo-political context that TB wasimmediately abandoned by hisBelgian/Burundi mother (Helen Steinbock)resident in Anvers, Belgium , and hisMexican/Porto-Rican father (Ricardo Reyes)living in Silver Lake L.A.With a heavy heart and a light spirit, hewandered around Paris, London, Warsaw,listening to the Sparks and the Buzzcocks.He discovered Warhol, Haring and Basquiatwhile decoding Actuel – he was then dazzledby the work of Diane Arbus and JohnCoplans, and filched their catalogues fromthe library at the Villa Saint-Clair in Sète.From then on he never stopped painting andphotographing, all the while hoping that itwould go on for ever.

Settling in Nice in the 90’s, he met his master(Ben Vautier), then his adoptive Japanesegrandmother (Yoko Gunji), and his paternalgrandfather (Joseph Mailland). They taughthim the art of ceramics, the fundamentals ofvideo, the laws of perspective and thetechniques of flat tints of black acrylic paint.A friend of Hélène Arnaud, he adopted thepsychobilly look while at the same time

listening to the last electrolysergic echoes ofSummer of Love 1988. He also learnt off byheart the Inrockuptibles during the five yearsthat it was published, and parodiedBukowski in his university room. It was whilereading Céline or Hubert Selby Jr, under thebenevolent eye of Jean-Pierre Arson, that hestarted to experiment with a cocktail ofalcohol/tranquilisers/MDMA. He did so withas much enthusiasm as was his admirationfor Christian Bernard, who was already aprophet in his country. In 1997 he left to take refuge in Anvers andBrussels, after surviving a Stendhalsyndrome.It was in March 2000 that I became aware ofTB through the intermediary of a radio hostwho, in order to illustrate what he wassaying, suddenly invented “ToshiroBishoko”as an illustration of a Japanese disc-jockey who had just arrived in Paris for a gig, and whose name he had forgotten.From then on I associated this disincarnated“Toshiro Bishoko” with the author of a storythat I had just finished writing in a moment ofboredom and with certain non-assumedliterary pretensions.This first founding text was published by theInrockuptibles a few months later, in thereader’s section, which made me very proudof myself and of my new invisible friend.Later I published other texts, more or lessauto-fictional or pseudo-journalistic, signedTB, which have been forgotten forever orpublished in Spore.Hiding behind this name, I suddenly hadaccess to a means of creation that I hadforbidden myself to use up to then.So I decided to continue to write under thispseudonym, and also to give the pseudocertain technical competences in an“uninhibited Warholianesque “ approach toobject production, potentially profit makingconcepts, or concepts that were simply onthe’ outer edge’ of the artistic sphere, in a“noble” and “classic” sense .In November 2000, a friend (GauthierTassart) sent me a sound samplingprogramme “Sound Edit” which I feverishlyinstalled on my computer, a Power Mac 8100.

I used it first to make a musical creationcommissioned by Gilles Barbier, and then,almost in an obsessive way, I used it to makeexperimental electronic pieces, naïve anddream-like, which quickly ended up on:“Can’t buy me glo-hove” Prince de Bontempi®, Toshiro Bishoko’s first self-producedalbum. The months went by, the secondalbum arrived fast, and by the fourth album Ihad also passed the entrance exam for theMarseille Conservatoire, in the electroacoustic section, in Pascal Gobin’s class.

I was at last going to learn how to LISTEN,while the musical path of TB and Denis Brungradually combined in a joyful wide-spectresonorous schizophrenia, spreading itself notonly across video, but also performancesand audio cds.I had three years of acousmatic happiness atthe Conservatoire, and in June 2004 I left fora residence-ship of six months in LosAngeles, where I met a Japanese musician-stylist (Lun*na Menoh) who was married toan essential figure of the Los Angelesunderground movement (Tosh Berman). Icollaborated on a collection that sherecomposed from different clothing sources,and which Toshiro Bishoko decorated withserigraphs in the final phase. Boosted by thisnew energy, I created a series of T-shirts andshirts reprinted by TB, that were boughtsecond-hand, sold in my work-shop or byword of mouth , or at Tetsu’s in a creator’sboutique in Hollywood. Meanwhile, TBshook hands with Marylin Manson afterqueuing for six hours for the group’sautograph on a red maxi-picture of PersonnalJesus.The following week he was at the last concertof the American tour “Lest we forget”, beforeleaving for San Diego. There he met bychance Ween’s drummer, who enabled him tosee the concert by getting his name down onthe guest list at the last moment in exchangefor a TB t-shirt.Back from the Los Angeles residence-ship, Istopped off in Belgium where I had a verygood restaurant owner friend (LaurentOlivès) and had led an almost double life forseveral years. I stayed there regularly inorder to think, cycle, do collages, drawings,or just simply live under the special light ofthe North and disappear in the country-sideof this doubly flat country. Two friends offriends, incorrigible night owls who weren’tvery given to sleeping, one from the fashionworld and the other from a novel by BretEaston Ellis, suggested that I do whatever Iliked to add an arty touch to their hiprestaurant, Easy Tempo.Toshiro Bishoko accepted their offer andsuggested three luminous white caissonsrepresenting the face of a 60’s top model, inblack and white over three different colouredbases. A heavy allusion to pop-art and to theGeneration X aesthetics of the retro-sixtiesrecord jacket of the 80s. The installation thatwas set up bears the same name as TB’s lastalbum: Fashion-victimism, and had a veryfavourable reception from the clients.Back in Marseille, Toshiro Bishoko finishedhis tenth album and founded ‘Damned undHerren’ with Sandy Ohmygod! and producedfor Borderline Calling, a unique concert ofProto-Music at the Usine in Istres, with three

other experimentally diverse formations.At the very moment that I write this text, Ihave no idea exactly where TB is, but at theslightest indecision of my creative integrity,he will jump in the first plane, train or bus hecan find, and go where I cannot go.

“It is sweet , when one is safely on the shore,to see the sea, wild in the storm, take out it’sanger on the unfortunate; not that themisfortune of others gives pleasure , butbecause it is always pleasant to be but thewitness of ills that we do not share.”

Lucretius, Of Nature

Denis Brun 2007.

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Low-couture

When I ask people to wear my dresses duringinaugurations, I feel as if I am creating asham (not discreet enough to pass withoutnotice, but almost…) and to be playing thepart of a false stylist who is explaining hiswork to anyone who wants to listen.Sometimes I have the impression that it isdangerous to want to parody the fashionworld using the under cover of art.Effectively, people believe me capable oftechnical exploits which are above mycapabilities, far removed from my artisticpreoccupations, whereas I simply want toconstruct collections by hand and get themworn at inaugurations, and then present thedresses that have been worn, as sculptures.If I repeat the same movements and recreateusing the same pattern over and over again,it is with the determination to fix time on apiece of clothing. Little by little, it loses itsfirst use which is to dress in the mostflattering way possible, and becomes“penetratable matter” in which the bodycontinues to express itself very simply.In the same way, the dress keeps its identitywithout the automatic application of a“representation/body/clothes” synthesis inits most common evocative and restrictivesense.

Photographs

I have a relationship with photography ofpure pleasure, in the sense that I pass mytime taking photos mentally, which meansthat I don’t necessarily have a camera tohand but that I am nearly continuously in thesituation of a photographer who is on thelook out. When the context allows it, I takethe photograph in the most spontaneous,fast, and joyful way possible.The subject matter of my photographs, whenit isn’t auto portraits, is made up of diversescenes from which potential narratives canstem. In both cases, it reflects verysubjectively a state of mind that is oftenclose to that which I have when I am workingon videos, composing my dreamlike fictions.Effectively, I am interested in the evocation ofan imaginary world, approaching reality froma different angle, in keeping with a dreamliketradition on which my work has been hingedfor a long time.

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SK8

I have been collecting sk8s since 1996; andbeyond a certain fetishism that is totally (?)assumed, and which is a result of aboundless love of skateboards linked to the“old-school” ideology (skating for skating’ssake), and to the old-fashioned and joyfulspirit of rebellion in both appearance andbehaviour, and….to two long years of waitingbefore I had my first skate board, I considerthe object of my dreams to be an almostperfect modern urban vehicle. Not only doesit give a distanced posture, slightly above thetarmac, but also a certain freedom in its use,because it can have both a decorative and asportive value. What is more, it is not only“autonomous” in relation to the rider, but thewooden support decorated with serigraphicmotifs will be even more interesting afterbeing ill treated for numerous hours oncertain “spots”…. DB

Blue Wednesday,le reste est ailleursOr the terrible vacuity of a mentalmonologue.

In truth, I have never chosen a film subject. Ihave let ideas enter my head, grow anddevelop; I have taken notes and more notes,and at the instant when I felt myselfsuffused: forward march … It’s a way of goingon, not by choice or by adoption, but byprogressive invasion.Extract from François Truffaut’s Correspondence.

As far as I’m concerned, the progressiveinvasion has been going on for 35 years,which doesn’t stop me from being a fervent disciple of intellectual laziness and gratuitous contemplation. I enjoyunderstanding approximately things that areinherent to my life as an artist and to life ingeneral, it allows me to advance, groping, inconcentric circles, towards an opaque andmoving vanishing point. I often have theimpression of passing from one idea toanother, stopping sometimes at a mediumwithout however investing in it totally. But infact, why should I legitimise the presentinstant by fixing it in a creative approach thatis so standardised that it would become yetanother plastic affirmation in a world thatcontinually spews up sense and nonsense?Has not freefall, at least in galactic obscurity,far more exciting properties than a simpleturn on a round-about in a fun fair whichleaves you with an aftertaste of frustration,mixed with a “post-popcornian” desire tothrow up?No, clearly, I only know how to do one thingnaturally , and that is “global remixing”, theexperimental synthesis of ideas, forms,colours and sound ,in real-time withsometimes an improvised recording sessionwhich is immediately put away and listed ,and is taken out later, when the time is rightfor a creative attempt .Over time, all the more or less successfulartistic projects form a landscape which wecan apprehend in different ways, accordingto the angle we view it from, and the seasonin which it takes place.Viewed from above, I could also look like acharacter playing at planes by himself, armsoutstretched, eyes wide, ears on alert,murmuring an electro-bucolic refrain thateveryone has already forgotten. Clearly, theplane isn’t the best way to keep ones feet onthe ground, but why walk in the directionthat inevitably leads to the same exit as yournext door neighbour?I hope that you understand this; I do not

particularly want to consider my workglobally, at the moment this does not interestme, and the less I know the more I do withouthaving the impression of doing it. While atthe same time I tell myself that I am doingsomething terribly important but that I don’tunderstand it. I do not like working, I getbored very quickly, and because of this I findmyself with a diverse production, made outof pain, fragile and more or less finished, andwhich I don’t really know what to do with.Nihilism I write your name. I am literallyoverwhelmed by doubt, growing doubts,about the advance and the pertinence of theartistic projects I have undertaken over thesepast years. However, one thing I feel iscertain, and that is that it is impossible forme to stop my ceaseless search in redefiningthe frontiers of my mental universe , usingthe mediums of drawing, sewing, collage,writing, murals, painting, video, vestiaryaction or performances. I try to create avocabulary of objects, forms, images ,sounds or attitudes which will be able toshow my moral state at that moment, theunderstanding I have of myself at the veryinstant that I am thinking of or doing things.Effectively, it is pure subjectivity thatmotivates me when I catch a passing ideaand try and customise it, in order to make itcompatible with a whole stable of ricketymetaphors, of spicy tales or naïve images.But already at this level of representation,the main sense which might appear in mywork (this sense that I cannot name, thissemantic matrix, this plastic soul recordedunder X or in a “dossier without a title”), onlyappears pre-recorded. The preciousdimension, rare, euphoric, the dimensionthat I feel when I find a new idea, is no morethan a far off echo. The only thing left for methen is a solution of replacement to use as aninterface between my conscience and theexterior: it is the “if” or “it looks as if”.Yes, I use with conviction and from a veryearly age, the schizophrenic functions of mymind, those that haven’t learnt tocommunicate conventionally with theoutside world and which only have my twohands to express themselves. Could I havedone anything else but art? What is the pointof knowing, as apart from the pleasing sideof DIY, using everything and anything, andbeing aware that it could be good ,or interestsomeone other than me, there is a state ofsurvival that I try to maintain in order to pushback the desire of death which underpins myartistic and human equilibrium.No, I am no more prone to suicide than IanCurtis, Kurt Cobain, Nicolas de Stael , or anyother person who smokes too much, drinkstoo much , eats too much , and watches TF1more than thirty seconds a day . My work

takes its roots in a past that was no morethan an absolute attempt to escape from avulgar and insipid reality. Because of this,the accumulation of creative desires thatunconsciously filled me during the first halfof my life, could logically have only found anoutlet in the domain of the arts in the verylargest sense of the term.And as we are touching on the slipperyslopes of the anecdote, I can give you a last“freestyle” figure in a 100% “old-school”spirit: at four years old I decided to paintsome enormous wood shavings in sky blueto give to my mother as a present. I was socertain of the beauty and the power of theselarge three dimensional commas that Iquickly forgot the little interest they wouldcause when they would be given. Theimportant thing in my eyes was to makesomething different with what was to hand,the rest, that is everything else, had littleimportance. I managed to extract myselffrom my own conscience, and at last I was incommunion with the odours, a colour, andforms. The sincerity of this first artisticapproach, as strong and naïve as it was didnot derogate from a pitiless rule evoked byMarcel Duchamp himself: in order to makeart, sincerity is not enough, my housekeeperis sincere, but that does not make her anartist.But the quest for sensations in creation stillguides my artistic research in those fieldsthat constitute the basis of an imaginaryworld, a world lived from inside, dedicated tothe dream in all its aspects, and rejecting allkinds of general moods or ways of doingthings.To live and create by default, that is mycredo. To try to develop an approachgenerated by uncertainty, and of which themobile anchoring points are in keeping withboth empiric reality and congenitalhallucinations. At this little game one isnever totally disappointed, and to end, I willconclude with a last quote by the situationistRaoul Vaneigeim , taken from his ‘Traité desavoir vivre à l’usage des jeunes generations‘ published in 1967 : the show is over , theaudience stands. Looks for their coats to gohome, turns around, no more coats, and nomore homes.

Denis BrunMarseille 28th January 2002

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Autofiction Sound System

As both a road movie character filmed underthe Californian sun , and an ultimate fan ofthe dark suicidal pop music of the 80’s, DenisBrun draws a self-portrait at the Centre forContemporary art in Istres , in whichopposite identities are reunited in aschizophrenic form of creativity. Aprogramme that is prolonged byVideochroniques, with the projection of hisvideos at the Miroir.

In the clip ‘Enjoy the Silence’ (DepecheMode), we can see the ‘king’ Dave Gahancarrying a pathetic chaise-longue, wanderingalone in a desert kingdom, admiringmagnificent landscapes. Denis Brun haschosen it as the title of his exhibition at theCentre of Contemporary Art in Istres, findingin it a sort of self-portrait. A voyage aroundmy home studio? An enormous sheet ofpainted paper, photocopied and stuck to thewall displays his self-portrait like a poster,making one think of all those who have inthe past mimed a musician in front of amirror: dressed in a rock-garage outfit, in arobotic position , his reflection is fragmentedby three mirrors , the face is erased. Allidentities are available – schizophrenia as amethod: to make no choice today betweenpainting and video, between the skaters andthe Goths in an 80’s secondary school yard,between adolescence and adulthood.Opposite, Denis Brun has placed a joyouslyfunereal oeuvre, a sort of clover whichdeclines the head of Robert Smith of TheCure , and which is covered with a cemeteryof plastic flowers – a fan’s commemoration ,he” buried once more the person he was theday before”. So then, there is an identity tobe reinvented, or rather to be borrowed, inorder to fill a vacuum. As soon as one goesin, one discovers an engraving from themiddle ages of child Siamese twins withMarilyn Manson’s head divided in two, post-nuclear bodies which return like anobsessive fear of youth, “Flee from me, I’mfollowing you…” (The more you ignore me,the closer I get, title borrowed fromMorrissey). Yet the gothic singer is an“adopted” kid of Los Angeles, the sunnyCalifornian town, which Denis Brunfantasised about for a long time, until arecent trip when he filmed ‘Drive this Way’, aphysical and sonorous drifting, mixing home,road and teen movie .A town where onedoesn’t walk, a town which has created awhole mythology around the car, and wherethe skate board was invented – this form ofsurfing on concrete appeared on a wave-lessday in Venice Beach. It is the point of impact

in ‘Ride this Way’, a double video projectionof a round trip on a skate board, a way ofintegrating its own mythology in the décor.How can something that was no more thanan idealised projection be appropriated? Byadding one’s own fiction, following theexample of this skater of whom only theblack outline on a white background remainsalongside palm trees under a sequined sky.(Death in Venice). A phantasmic presence ina summer décor: Denis Brun has chosen notto choose between opposing universes. Hehas covered the art centre stair ramp withwax – a gesture used in skateboarding tofacilitate sliding, and over-played here to thepoint of making us think of a gothic churchmass (SK8 Goth Waxing Mood). A universewhich is continued in a little metallisedroom, where one can hear bird song and thestory of the lunatic Billy Name, who slept inthe toilets of Warhol’s Factory. Over andabove the endless “mixing” of references –which has become a pre-wrapped discoursein art – or of yet another post pop chapter,Denis Brun appropriates a form of self-portrait which is closer to a narcissismdisplayed in the field of pop music ratherthan an art which would repress ego andpathos.” My work simply takes root in a pastthat was only an attempt to escape from avulgar and insipid reality”. A time that nodoubt is associated with the albums thatpunctuate the exhibition ( signed New Order,Bauhaus, Joy Division, Neon Judgement…),and which are drawn recto verso on plasticbags, under the neon light of a New Wave.And yet the Californian sunlights cohabitwith suicidal urges. Digital paintings withabstract light show colours are placedopposite a strange piece of piano-furniture, ablack box with no other opening than thatgiven by the sound of piano punk dating fromlate adolescence, and which is never ending.

Pedro MoraisIn Ventilo February 2006

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During the exhibition “OUTSIDING” at theLogoscope in Monaco in January 2001,Toshiro Bishoko’s first album was playednon-stop in the framework of a visual andsound installation, on a mini-disk player, ona loudspeaker baffle made out of a petrolcan. I had just integrated music as such in myartistic production, by using it as a soundlink, a producer of active ambiance,complementing and adding to the underlyingnarrations.

Fan of…

When it comes to editing, Denis Brun is anartist hyped up by Granolas®: on the onehand because the creative seething whichinvades him and the time limit, allow him toeat nothing but those little biscuits. On theother hand because he is just simply a hyperartist, hooked rather on imaginary and fictional substances. Hyperactive,schizophrenic? That fits as well, and it is nothis fictional alter-ego Toshiro Bishoko whowould tell you the contrary. Often led,especially through this character, to imaginethe New wave youth which he would haveliked to have lived, Denis Brun has though,nothing to envy in the non- conformity ofthis fashion. At least with regard to hisartistic and therefore personal path. He wasfirst a pupil at the Villa Saint Clair in Sète, afan of Combas and Di Rosa, and then a pupilat the Villa Arson in Nice. A lover of colouredfigurative painting, before abandoning it forall possible and imaginable mediums, hewas also at the Marseille Conservatoire inthe electro-acoustic class. All this wasinterspersed with artistic residencies,notably in Los Angeles, which was aminimum for a fan of urban 80’s culture witha leaning towards the skate and the Cure.Fan Club 3000 is an understatement:multiple influences make his work explode,and these influences are carried by purefascination which once digested turns hiscreation into a unique experience.His ubiquity and his sensitivity have allowedhim to distance himself from the literality of3bisf, in order to better extract his spiritualpotential, his disquieting but fascinatingstrangeness. This shift has been guided byDenis Brun’s wider approach tospatiotemporal digressions, furtive yetdecisive moments and ports of call, andwhich result in the transformation of ahospital into a lynchian motel. Denis Brun’soeuvres are therefore the result of a doublewager: that of a long project of artisticresearch guided by curiosity and culturalfascination, and that of artistic coincidences,of “Duchampian” chance – in other wordsthe unsuspected and creative encounterbetween plastic and visual data.Haunting the spaces of 3bisf, Denis Brun’s

video creations and monumentalinstallations, cohabit in an unexplained butcoherent manner, a manner that is bothfictional and sensitive. Denis Brun is afascinated and fascinating experimentalist,an artist who works to reduce the spacebetween the different thresholds from whichthe world can be apprehended.

Leslie Compan.

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Self-portraits.

It was when I was doing several self-portraits in a hotel room in Lisbon in 1997,that I officially made the decision to becomean artist. It was above all a question ofseeing myself exist, and to be in keepingwith the application of a classical subject,while at the same time “protecting” myselffrom a non-artistic reality.

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Multi-frame photocopies

In the field of the multi-frame photocopy, andas sources of my visual discourse, I useimages that I enlarge by 1000% and stick tothe wall like wall-paper. This wall-drawingtechnique enables me to visually establishcertain reference marks based on originaldrawings or images borrowed from my dailylife, from adverts, from magazines, and tocreate a mood, a semantic bath, whichperhaps helps (or not..) the globalunderstanding of my production , howeverdisparate it is. In the long term, beyond theexhibition or its’ social effect, through theuse of the multi-frame photocopy I cancreate a re-exploitable link between thevarious other oeuvres that make up myuniverse. DB

Acrylic painting 1

Free representation, via 80’s societymagazines, incited me to paint during thefirst three years of my studies. The very naïveapproach that I had to this medium wasn’tsatisfying enough for me to make it myfavourite subject. In fact I completely forgotit when (horrifyingly) I found that I had thesame sensation when painting a vulgar chairas I had when I was working on a blankcanvas. Later, I found an ersatz of pleasure inpainting, while experimenting withPhotoshop. I therefore decided to reproducein acrylic medium on canvas, my digitaldrawings, which were made up of flat tintsand simple forms. I photographed thecomputer screen with a slide film in thecamera, and then I projected the slide on thecanvas, but without success. It was onlywhen I reproduced the faults of the shot aswell as the digital drawing that I came to theconclusion that it was impossible for me topass with impunity from one medium toanother without removing or addingsomething to the “pictorial defector”. Thisattempt to continue painting is still veryimportant, and enables me to rework myrelationship with colour in a joyouslyregressive way. DB

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Acrylic painting 2

When I photographed the skaters at Venicebeach, I always had in mind Franck Romero’spaintings that I had discovered at the MOCAin San Diego – I decided to reproduce someof the photos in paintings, following aprincipal that I had been thinking about foryears: introducing into the image, zoneswhere the tones changed, and using varnishas a coloured extension, positioning itvertically on horizontal bands, thusproducing a chromatic grille.

DBAn extract from LO2LAA residence-ship report.

Opinions about objectsthat don’t have any opinions

In order to kill a sub-culture, the extent of thedifference that the subculture expresses,must be reduced to a homogenous state bytrivialising its’ nature. 1

It was while he was in residence in SantaMonica, California, that Denis Brun (re)learnthow to do things. A double return to theroots happened, and produced a series ofhand made paintings, and another seriescreated on the computer. If the first series isa preparation linked to the move to anothercreative space, then the second series is asort of consequence of this, the movement ofa journey in the troubled waters of Americanculture. Does this mean that there is a line ofcauses and consequences in Denis Brun’s sovery varied work? Can one seriously believethat a journey can influence an artisticproject and constitute the origin of an artist’sfictional world?First of all there is the culture, that of DenisBrun’s American adolescence, which is madeup of a universe full of images that have beenunstuck, recycled, reassembled and finallyrelocated. Then there is the manner in whichthe now floating images are organised orrather territorialised. It is at this precisemoment of interaction that the artist comesup with different faces. For the out and outwanderer who, discovering a new universeevery second, congruent with his own,interior, in constant upheaval, and that of thestreet that has to be understood step by step, there develops a certain state of mindwhich helps to alleviate the entropy. The useof recycled supports in his soft paintings,where heterogeneous objects are placed incollages, rejoins a chaotic organisation ofspace which is at the very limits of excess.Therefore then, a spatial system must bereconstructed, and over-abundance must beredefined by recycling, which pre-supposes acertain degree of loss. In short, a wealth ofabundance opposes a concern of theminimum. The use of recycled forms isbalanced by the artist’s eye. Collectingbecomes his new activity, constituting anappropriation process where, in recordingmode, the imaginary mixes with collectivespaces. Collecting the dross of commonculture amounts to finding a support onwhich the imaginary can flower, and when allis said and done, provides material that canbe cultivated. It is here that two notionsbecome part of the creative field, the notionof belonging to a given culture, and themisleading notion of the sense that one can

find within it.From Marseille to Santa Monica, since thestart of the so badly named concept ofglobalisation, in trying to bring men and theircultures up to the same level, we listen to thesame Marilyn Manson, but in different ways.In the same manner, the use of a pastingtechnique multiplies superposition, butmakes the image more and more unstable. Inthe series ‘Death in Venice’, the areas ofcolour delimit the images, referring back totheir role as motifs, a flat décor wherebackdrops and forms merge. The black linethen plays a major role. It separates thesurfaces and makes the space of the sheet ofpaper breathe. A white margin stands out,opening a spatial and neutral interspace,between sky and earth, between paintingand drawing, just like the guard-rail whichoutlines the contours of urban culture.Writing becomes the element of connections,animating the shapeless chaos of the streetand the images it projects. In this way, DenisBrun finds in the ultimate figure of the skate-boarder, the person who actually navigates,between the margins of the culture that heappropriates and the culture he recreates, inthe spaces lining the streets.The image can become a simple logo,functioning as an independent signature,like the graffiti that the artist takes fromcomic books, in the effigy of the death’shead. By reinventing the simple black line, inthe overlapping of universes frozen in themoment of flight, the representation of deathplunges the lineation into a feeling of doubtabout its identity: “Skateboarding couldperhaps survive on black and white pages,without all the gloss and colour ofadvertising campaigns for surf clothes”. 2Writing linked to skateboarding (, thefrustrated figure of a surfer when there areonly small waves,) is born on the pages ofthose magazines which would want totransform the town into a skate park.Formats become evident for Denis Brun.Whether they be newspapers where the printmerges with the free line, plastic bags whichhave become patterns, or customised T-shirts, the whole of it is but a subject for hisinventiveness. The painter, who covers pre-existing surfaces in order to show evendenser palimpsests, is on the same line asthe graffiti artist. The urban space isdeconstructed as the intervention takes itscourse, and forms a strange film. It is the filmof Mort a Venice, where, through too tight ahelmet oozing haemoglobin, one can see aseries of sequences in which the passer-by’svision is blurred.Denis Brun seems therefore to have thisblurring of vision twice. In Santa Monica, theland of his fallen heroes, he finds those

beautiful losers who have their skateboardstilted towards inconsistent reflections 3 andwho finally do exactly what they want.Spiderman exclaims “I don’t give afuck…shit”, his faded hero’s costumecontrasts with the red jet that he throws. Hashe, like the artist, given up a long time backhis role of saviour of humanity, by adding areverse comic side to his character? It is fromthis fall of the hero, that for Denis Brunbegins a return, not to painting as this hasalready happened , but to its’ pictorialquality. The term seems abstruse, but islegitimised by the technique that is used.This consists of digital paintings, made onthe computer, following a process ofmanipulation of forms and colours, whichgives an autonomous and balanced result inthe artist’s eyes. Each composition is printedon rectangular formats of average size. Theblurring of vision is first of all situated in arelationship of seduction. These paintingspropose the application of a child’s game,where one must recognise in the sky exactlywhat the clouds are suggesting. Thehypothesis of abstract painting isimmediately rejected, following the othercloud theory, that of Hubert Damisch: thecloud in the representation of theRenaissance is this ground zero of painting,an immaterial substance, and also apresence, a pictorial “stain” of its impuremateriality.4 One can find a hint of thisparadox in the use of the computer in the“return” to painting. The final aspect isdetermined for Denis Brun by a certain senseof guess-work, that is to say free choice, acasual stroll forming the composition and inthe end a certain roaming pleasure. Duringthese roaming moments, the cloud becomesthe mirror of the town that is wanderedthrough. The artist leaves clues behind him,thanks to the titles of the paintings which arealways suggestive but never precise enoughto know where one is. And through theimpressions of the lights of cars andbuildings, and in the ordering of psychedeliccolours, one can ask oneself if the artist wasrocked by the effects of urban drugs.This paradox of using the impure graphics ofthe computer in order to return to paintingbrings with it a double challenge. The artobject is reintroduced, with all the ideologyof market commodity that it carries, and inthis sense it brings another stone to theedifice of Americanisation which the artist’sreferences convey. But Denis Brun isn’tfooled, and as the magnificent loser he is, heintroduces this seduction of the object, inorder to attract, limit, and finally lead astray.The road-movie that he never stops writingseems to have several actors; the artistsends us an invitation card, not to take part

but to strangely appreciate.The leap between France and the USA ismade in this way, finding in the pictorialquality the pledge of a new artisticexperience.Two more general consequences in the formof an interrogation, allow us to appreciatethis residence-ship which is full of interest.At these times of a massive return toconsiderations about painting5, thequestion of quality is clearly expressed in thepath that leads Denis Brun to display acertain seduction for the ‘object picture’. Thereturn of the manufactured object, ofoptimum quality, contrary to aesthetics ofthe minimal, helps to reassure thisprotéiform artist. Painting returns to its’specificity in the realm of a widenedcreativity. Denis Brun mounts videos, sews,sometimes draws, listens to and makes agreat deal of music, but isn’t at all worried bylabels. In short, he liberates himself from hisold French demons 6. Painting and makingpictures allows him to slip between thecontinent of origin and his American mirrorwhich is but parody and mimicry. If it’s aquestion of displaying a seduction for thepictorial medium then it is just for a laugh, orat least in order to not worry about itanymore. Like any Hollywood dream, thelight only projects a shadow of itself; it is thesame for digital paintings. Away from theimpressions of urban peregrinations, the re-appropriation of cultural heritage knows nofrontiers any more. Between the “sub-cultural” gap and reworked tradition, DenisBrun sets a question which engages a to andfro’ movement that ignores all nationalattachments completely. Effectively, inquestioning a last time identity and painting,as Denis Brun has done, new surf waveshave been created there where world cultureseemed like a strangely calm lake.

Damien DelilleSan Francisco April 2005

1 – Dick Hebdige, Hiding in the Light, On images and

Things (Comedia), London, Methuen Drama 1989 p. 113

2 – Alex Baker, “Transforming terrains”, Beautiful

Losers, Cat. Exp. From the Yerba Buena Centre for The

arts, San Francisco, and the Contemporary Arts Center,

Cincinnati, Iconoclast Production and Dap 2004 p. 131

3 – During the opening of the artists’ workshop in Santa

Monica, Denis Brun decided in effect to tilt a skateboard

upside down, and place it against the wall opposite a

mirror that was on the floor.

4 – Hubert Damisch Theory of Clouds Paris Seuil 1972

5 – Cf La desire of the magazine ArtPress to dedicate a

series on reflection of the medium , from the beginning

of 2005

6 – As he explains himself, painting was incarnated by

Noel Dolla and the sacred and traditional way of “doing”

at the Villa Arson in Nice, where he studied.

Since he settled in Marseille in 1999, DenisBrun’s videos and sound productions havebeen attentively focused on byVidéochroniques, (because of theassociation’s essential role), while at thesame time other structures haveefficaciously dealt with his work in theirvarious fields (Astérides, Triangle France…).According to our archives, Denis Brun wasrapidly able to claim the honour of being“Vidéochronique’s most distributed artist“irrespective of category, (LesVidéogrammes festival in 2000and 2003);prospect #1, Objets Vidéos Non Identifiésand 58 films cash in 2001, Expérimental pointd’interrogation in 2003, Les Affinitéselectives in 2005…) This simple statisticaland book-keeping style of approach turnedout to be rather lacking however: effectively,nothing had been dedicated exclusively toDenis Brun….. Until the “retrospective”programming that we devoted to his work atthe Miroir cinema in February 2006.

First of all it was an opportunity to “brightenup”” the oldest works that had been filmedand mounted on analog supports, and toprefigure the DVD section of this presentpublication, whose multimedia characterclearly shows the richness , the explosion ,and also the paradoxes which characteriseDenis Brun’s work.This section refers to a corpus consisting of adozen or so oeuvres which were producedbetween 1997 and 2006, and of which theoldest stood as a manifesto (La mortd’Adèle, My Lost Paradise, Freestyle Mental).They crystallise the decisions that the artisttook at this time, and which led him toformulate this radical protocol: to stopfilming, above all not oneself, as an author tokeep in the background, not to be overauthoritarian, avoid directing the “onlooker”and orientating his interpretation, coverone’s tracks, limit the interventions to a sortof “cut and paste”, and use austere blackand white effects….

He had to break away, start from zero again,relearn by himself, and that coincided with aturning point in his personal journey. Inlimiting himself to the use of pre-existingvisual and sound material which he“remixed” in order to create those collisionswhich he calls “dream fictions” ( a tribute toDavid Lynch?), Denis Brun decluttered, hedecluttered himself. These were constraintsthat, retrospectively, seem to have been putin place in order to be taken away, step bystep and day by day, without ever therebeing a question of strategy. In this way he

has progressively re-appropriated thespaces that had purposely been left vacant(the making of images, the use of colour, thecomposing of music…), with a new masteryand liberty which accentuate even more thetensions inherent in his work: between itsverbose, even long-winded aspect and theeconomy even the modesty which the artistdisplays. Between the distance and theaffection on which they are based, with theirinspired melancholic character bothluminous and opaque, his videos find theirsubstance as much in the vehicles andmodels of “mainstream” ideology asalternative cultures.

Edouard Monnet

Marseille, 18th February 2008

Digital paintings.

These paintings were the fruit of anencounter a few years ago between my firstcomputer and graphic software. Wishing tocontinue painting in other ways than oncanvas or wood, I first composed imagesfollowing an aesthetic of the record sleevefor about six years. Then I slowly, and afterseveral manipulative errors, succeeded inapproaching a “form of abstraction”, whichseemed to suit me and lend itself topotentially vast possibilities. I am stilllooking for new compositions after layingwhat I consider to be solid foundations.

I do not start out with a precise form, butrather a coloured composition which comesfrom a detail of a photo or an amalgam ofcoloured patches which I redraw myself. Iexcessively enlarge the starting detail insuch a way as to render it unrecognisable,and then mix it with other coloured groupswhich I transform again and again with thehelp of different filters. I then look for a“form” which seems to me to beharmonious, balanced, structured. I work onit from different angles so that I am certainthat it will “hold” my personal aestheticcriteria, and I consider it finished when myeye stops fixing on a precise spot on theimage, but turns freely leaving the way forcontemplative sensations. D.B.

LA1

We were in the middle of august, I wascoming back, quietly rocked by the stream oftraffic on Highway 5S, and I had theimpression that a very strong relationshipwas building between the angel city and me,something progressive , passionate and atthe same time very personal.It didn’t matter what I thought I knew aboutthe town, because an immense charm wasworking and I let myself be guided by myinstinct, drifting along with my inspirations. Iwas constantly split between the Americancultural bath in which I was plunged deeperand deeper, and the fact that my time wasshort. At this very moment I still don’t knowif for a given instant I actually switched offmy European conception of time and spaceor if deep in my unconscious I kept a fewtemporal beacons telling me that inevitablythere would be a return to France.

LA2

However it may be, the daily spectacle gaveme many more colours, sensations and ideasthan I could ever have hoped for; Iprogressively realised that the spirit of mywork, defined according to a modestperspective, non strategic, existential,adapted perfectly to the “work in progress inan open house “ spirit of this residence-ship.

Drawings.

Drawing enables me to put in place narrativeideas, whose sources are diverse, while atthe same time concentrating on the harmonyand forms of the colours on the page. It isboth a log book containing elements fromdaily life, and a discipline of purely visualcomposition, which I adhere to regularly.

Soft Paintings

I started to plasticise using adhesive tape in1991 when I was making collages decoratedwith paint on aluminium leaves. Then in1994, I used this technique to assembleplasticised paper cubes, sewn by hand,padded with mousse or under-pinned by apolystyrene structure. It was in 1998 that myfirst rectangular soft paintings appeared,fixed on the top edge to a cardboard hangerwhich could be hung on a nail.Rapidly, the hanger (an evident reference tosewing techniques), disappeared so that thesoft painting could become independentboth in its composition and its size.Up to June 1999, the soft painting was, at itsmaximum, the width of my outstretchedarms, around 178cm. When I was given aworkshop at the Astérides Association, atthe Friche belle de Mai (Marseille), Isuccumbed to the temptation to producepaintings the size of the walls of my place ofwork; and so I created three soft paintings of3,4/2,6 m and one of 3,2/2,2m. Some ofthem were presented at the gallery of theFriche for the residents’ annual exhibition inOctober 1999.When I travel, I often collect diverse paperswhich I store or which I assemble on thespot, trying to create a pictorial compositionwhich could tell me a story. When I place theadhesive bands, I varnish in a monomaniacway, a painting that becomes….soft, andtherefore easy to carry and make, wherever Ifind myself.

Water colours.

The collages containing water colour are anextraverted colourful variation of those,much smaller, that I have been doing foryears in the same format (20cm/20cm). Theygenerally imply a larger format and arelationship with gesture that is moreevident, via “dripping” or streaks.They are axed more towards a narrationwhich combines writing and drawing throughdiverse mediums, and represent perhaps afar off echo of free figuration.