Steni Simon By Express News Service KOCHI: French artist and filmmaker Le Gentil Garcon is all smiles as he explains his new installation named ‘Rick-show 2020’, a travelling cinema device set up on an autorickshaw. It will have everything required for projecting a film in a public space including the stage, a screen, video projector, sound system, all mounted on an autorickshaw. The project is being carried out in association with College of Architecture, Thiruvananthapuram. The miniature model is on display at the ongoing ‘interactive’ exhibition being held at Alliance Francaise de Trivandrum in partnership with the Embassy of France and the Institut Francais India. Titled ‘Stories bloom at Trivandrum’, the exhibition brings together a series of works done by the artist since 2006 they deal with travel and exchange. The artist employs multiple mediums and settings from drawings, buildings and animated films. “All my works are done in a utopian way. I like the freshness of spirit that explains the relationship of a child to the world. As the poet and filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky puts it: ‘the artist as a child does not describe the world, he discovers it’,” says the French artist who goes by the pseudonym Le Gentil Garcon which means ‘the nice guy’. All five installations on display are interactive. One of his works ‘Trivandrum exquise-letter from France’ is a playful project which consists of 100 postcards representing French life and culture. It allows the participant to receive a postcard from France. All the cards will be posted by the artist. “Each postcard is unique and deals with the French art of living, tourists sites and places, traditional recipes and famous photographs. Your card will be sent to a participant who is chosen randomly. Each person will receive a card written by another participant. This way you become a link in a collective work of art,” says Le Gentil Garcon. His other work ‘Take the painting and run’ is based on Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s famous expressionist painting ‘The Scream’. “I made about 136 copies of Munch’s work and displayed them in a gallery at Oslo, Geneva, declaring that the public could steal any of the prints. But, people did not know that we had installed cameras in the room. In 15 days, more than 100 paintings were stolen,” says the artist. Also on display is a snowflake art titled ‘Wanted’ done on a plastic sheet which has more than 200 tiny distinctive snowflakes carved in. Each snowflake is designed using the model of snowflakes photographed at the end of the 19th century by Wilson Bentley, a pioneer in microscopic capture of objects. Holding a pair of hyoshigi or clapping sticks he procured from Kyoto in Japan, Le Gentil Garcon strikes them rhythmically. “This instrument was used by a kamishibai (a form of Japanese street theatre) storyteller who would arrive on a bicycle to tell stories to children. Mounted on a cycle, there is a small wooden theatre which broadcasts the film ‘Chronicle of the Past World’ (2013) which is inspired by this popular tradition of Japan. The ongoing exhibition at Alliance Francaise de Trivandrum will conclude on March 7. Le Gentil Garcon will also be putting up a video exhibition titled ‘Anima’ from February 15 at Pepper House, Fort Kochi which will conclude on March 9. ‘Anima’ is being organised by Alliance Francaise de Trivandrum in association with the Embassy of France in India, the Institut Francais India and the Kochi Biennale Foundation.

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