It is below the stage of the Cour d'honneur du Palais des papes that Steven Cohen invites us. A secret place, usually hidden from the spectators' view, steeped in memory and fiction. A space, at the threshold of the theatre and of the traditional setting for performance. Because what is played through Steven Cohen's installation- performance is at the crossroads of testimony, investigation and poetic rambling. Costumes, videos, phosphorescent lights and rats are the beacons of a place intentionally not situated in terms of periods and continents, on the edge of history and imagination. A major theme however: the discovery by the artist of a diary, made up of writings and sketched, kept between 1939 and 1942 by a young French Jew. How did this personal narrative become historical material, likely to be appropriated and transmitted? How does a document that dates back 70 years circulate until the 21th century, crystallizing our questions on the failures of humanity? How, as well, can these notebooks be made into subject matter for an artistic work? The story of this young man, whose traces were suddenly lost in 1942, resonate with Steven Cohen's own experience, that of a South African, Jew, white and homosexual, “oppressor and oppressed”, as he himself says. By multiplying the comings and goings between found objects and his own subjectivity, between the Shoah and apartheid, the artist contrasts facts and concepts: inside/outside, intimacy/history, public/private, trust/betrayal. Connected to major documentary work, Title Withheld (For Legal and Ethical Reasons) goes however largely beyond a work of memory. The diary, whose discovery was at the genesis of the project, cannot be reduced to the status of an archive: it transpires and crosses the century down to us, moving all those who become aware of it today, through the intervention and delicacy of Steven Cohen's work. RB
Distribution
conception, costumes and accessories Steven Cohen
dramaturgy Agathe Berman
lighting Erik Houllier
sound and video Armando Menicacci
animals trainer Guy Demazure
with Steven Cohen
Production
production Latitudes Prod (Lille)
coproduction Festival d'Avignon, BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen), Latitudes Contemporaines (Lille), NEXT Festival Eurometropolis (Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai-Valenciennes-FR/B), La Bâtie Festival de Genève
with the support of the Town of Lille and the programme Lille Ville d'Arts du futur, DRAC Nord-Pas de Calais, Région Nord-Pas de Calais, Institut français, Transdigital project (FEDER/Interreg IV France-Wallonie-Vlaanderen) and of Lille 3000 Fantastic