SYLVIE BLOCHER

The video Men in Pink by Sylvie Blocher (1953), produced especially for the exhibition Luxembourg, les Luxembourgeois, in 2001, has already been shown then, for two months, in an underground passage of the Centre Aldringen. Blocher, to integrate the video into her series, Living Pictures, had initially planned to question Luxembourgish bankers on their erotic relationship with money. After changing her mind, in the end, she asked singers from a Parisian choir of homosexuals, Les Caramels fous, to record two emblematic songs. Following L’Internationale from the communist movement, after the singers’ surprising metamorphosis, is Heigh-ho by the seven dwarfs, diamond miners, from the famous adaptation of the story of Snow White by Walt Disney. To the two great ideological promises of the 20th century, Blocher responds perturbingly with the stoic and melancholic immobility of the aged singers.

“I shot L’annonce amoureuse (The Love Announcement) with the 13 winners of the Michel Simon Prize, with Judith Henry and a non-actor, Fabrice Rozlé, with whom I had started the tests late in 1993. The Saint-Denis Film Festival had asked me to make the trophy which was to be awarded by Roman Polanski. I had agreed on condition that I could be introduced to the prize winners, so that I could persuade them to take part in my project. I met them all at the Cafe Weppler, Place de Clichy, In Paris, and explained the filming conditions to them: they would make a lover's announcement addressed through the camera to a person of their choice, and they would do this without a script and without make-up. I made it clear to all of them that there was no psychoanalysis involved. The shooting was tricky. They all accepted the risk of stepping out of their actor’s profession, despite the fact that some of them had famous names, and although the video would be screened before the jury’s verdicts. Each one of them left me with very strong memories. The recording time ranged from half an hour far some up to seven hours for one of them...”

Sylvie Blocher

_{Interview with Sylvie Blocher about de Men in Pink produced on the occasion of the exhibition Le meilleur des mondes}

[Translate to English:] _{Interview with Sylvie Blocher about L’annonce amoureuse produced on the occasion of the exhibition Le meilleur des mondes}

D’Wierker Men in Pink an A More Perfect Day vun der franséischer Kënschtlerin Sylvie Blocher an der Emissioun .art op RTL.

Hannergrënn iwwert eng Video-Aarbecht vum Sylvie Blocher aus der Mudam Sammlung an der Emissioun Mech géif mol interesséieren, wat dat hei ass? um Radio 100,7.

www.sylvieblocher.com