les presses du réel

Interpretation

Lili Reynaud-Dewar - Interpretation
Artist's book: the last part of a complex project initiated in 2010—an exploration of the intimate legacies of Sun Ra's peculiar body of work.
The interpretation of an existing script or score is an essential element in many performances. Lili Reynaud Dewar is interested in staging techniques and ritualistic aspects of theatre: her work takes the form of installations which include sculptures, texts, photographs and visual signs — and also involve the live participation of musicians and actors. In the suite of exhibitions and performances titled Interpretation, that she initiated in 2010, she develops her own reading, and explores the intimate legacies of a peculiar body of work—that of the African American musician Sun Ra.
The book Interpretation can be considered as the last part of a complex project that wasn't organized programmatically but rather, improvised through a piecemeal approach to art and research as such. The publication unfolds this elaboration through a text by the artist and documentation of her working process; it also gathers multiple visions of Sun Ra, from photographs taken by Philippe Gras at the concert Sun Ra and his Arkestra gave in 1971 at the Fondation Maeght, to texts by Diedrich Diederichsen, Anthony Elms and J. Griffith Rollefson on his music, his theatrics and his politics. For a book is less a matter of pinning down the definite truth of a fact, or of one's fiction, but an exercise in opening a multiplicity of interpretations.
Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel from April to June, 2013.
Pulling from a multiplicity of influences – fashion subcultures, radical design, or the history of cinema –, Lily Reynaud Dewar (born 1975 in La Rochelle, France) draws slanting lines between her personal history and some universal cultural signifiers. She often identifies with icons of cultural or racial transgression, such as writer and activist Jean Genet, visionary jazz musician Sun Ra, or dancer Josephine Baker. Thanks to the use of performance and the text, and through ever-changing roles and the interplay of people and objects, Reynaud Dewar creates a dialogue that challenges fixed identities, or the politics of the exhibition.
Edited by Adam Szymczyk and Benjamin Thorel.
Texts by Diedrich Diederichsen, Anthony Elms, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, J. Griffith Rollefson.

Graphic design: Change is good (Rik Bas Backer & José Albergaria).
 
published in August 2013
bilingual edition (English / French)
21 x 29,7 cm (softcover, dust jacket)
128 pages (color ill.)
 
25.00
 
ISBN : 978-2-918252-12-2
EAN : 9782918252122
 
in stock
 
 
press releases
Interpretation Interpretation Interpretation Interpretation Interpretation Interpretation Interpretation Interpretation Interpretation Interpretation Interpretation Interpretation Interpretation


 top of page