Toxic Lesbian has invited the B-Ville focused EXILE Gallery to participate in an online, streaming video performance.

EXILE will present “Pre-enactment #23″ a performance inspired by “Portrait of a woman as a sphinx,” a video by the legendary, Geneviève de Parnier, co-founder of B-Ville 2049.

Invité par Toxic Lesbian, EXILE Gallery présentera une performance pré-création de “Portrait de femme en sphinx,” la vidéo légendaire de Geneviève de Parnier, co-fondatrice du mouvement B-Ville 2049.

Cliquez http://www.ideash.org/toxiclesbian

Best new features:

You can see the de Parnier videos at a glance with the video page.

You can also find a bilingual version of the Manifesto.

Thanks to my EXILE Gallery cohort Kelly Cogswell for her help with the redesign. We’ll be pressing ahead with our plans for shows and performances despite our demonstrated lack of fundraising abilities.

With l’Ange, De Parnier’s portrait series moved into a more abstract phase. A natural evolution from “Portrait de femme en sphinx,” she reversed her formula of camera on tripod with subject attempting to remain still, with still subject captured by a camera influenced by the slight movements of the photographer’s own body.

A classic of the B-Ville group.

The second video in de Parnier’s fan trilogy, “One moves, the other doesn’t” explores the relationship between perpetual motion, and stasis. The most experimental of her “still life” videos in terms of lighting and sound, this work may have inspired point three in the B-Ville Manifesto, “If perpetual motion and stasis have the same essential effect, let us resist even the impulse to flee.” The title has been attributed to de Parnier’s lover, Q. Sutherland, a play on the 20th century Agnès Varda film, L’une chante, l’autre pas.

EXILE gallery's first exhibit, rue Piat, Belleville

Did I mention EXILE was on rue Piat?

EXILE's exhibit continues on rue de Belleville.

Posting sequentially, statement 11 fell in front of a butcher shop. “Cities grind and like enormous sausage makers produce their wares. Soon it will be our turns. Cruelty is not worth the effort. Stars are lost on the beach.”

The label was actually stuck to a post a few feet away from the shop.

Butchershop, rue de Belleville

The first showing of Geneviève de Parnier’s videos is scheduled for next week. To find out where and when, follow EXILE Gallery on twitter at http://twitter.com/exilegallery.

There’s some speculation that the figure is Antonio Liebig, who served two consecutive sentences for fraud after the failure of his investment services, then went on to have a successful career as the manager of an underground cabaret occasionally frequented by the artist.

A second possibility is her brother who immigrated at 19. If the dates on the video are accurate, they correspond to a family visit. Unfortunately, the dates on her videos are rarely accurate.

Writer Q. Sutherland actually made few claims about the relevance of the Manifesto, aside from its accuracy. Originally scribbled in her shorthand of English and French, she said at most it should be considered as a valuable reflection of the group in an unguarded moment, one of the few in which they actually appeared in public together.

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Manifesto Against the Present from A Probably Future Day

We, who are not yet born, salute you.

Tyrants, with each maladroit choice you contract our lives to the sixty nine circles of purgatory, and a mere three of hell which you expect to reflect your preoccupations, but instead exhibit the far more repulsive face of mere bad taste.

Still, our fate is better than yours, you who are trapped in your skin, dissolving like bone into so much dust while your mouths still gape and close.

We can feel that grimy air brush over us and into the so-called sky where like you the dead stars have ruled for endless centuries.

After considerable thought and much grain alcohol we conclude therefore:

1. Cowardice is truth. And harder by far to bear than courage.

2. We must refuse our last few choices, including revolt.

3. If perpetual motion and stasis have the same essential effect, let us resist even the impulse to flee.

4. Henceforth, we will pursue nothing, exalt nothing except dreamless sleep.

5. We will sit in our rocking chairs and stare.

6, We will conserve ourselves.

7. When Beauty unbuttons her shirt, it is not for us.

8. Enter the world stage left. The new millennium holds its hiccupping breath then pukes on our shoes, where it solidifies, and remains.

9. In a landscape of gestures, we keep our hands in our pockets, behind our backs. Appendages should be as discrete as meaning.

10. Museums and libraries we embrace for their warmth, and allow the homeless to take the best seats.

11. Cities grind and like enormous sausage makers produce their wares. Soon it will be our turns. Cruelty is not worth the effort. Stars are lost on the beach.

There are 9 billion three hundred twenty seven thousand, fifty-two knives out there. Enough for each of you. A good jailer knows what to do.

B-Ville 2049

We hope to stage a large installation/performance in Paris sometime in November, with a focus on De Parnier’s videos.

If you would like to support this performance, we are welcoming contributions at the Kickstarter site.

Another still life video from Geneviève de Parnier. The first of a trilogy, “Two fans” is a meditation on the tension between motion and rest. I hope to upload the second part soon, and continue looking for the unfinished third in her archives. She apparently suppressed it due to technical and artistic concerns.

“Portrait de femme en sphinx,” one of Geneviève de Parnier’s first video portraits, is believed to be a representation of writer Miriam Montrémy shortly before her mysterious death.

De Parnier’s notes indicate that the composition may have been based on images from ancient Greek pottery at the Louvre. In any case, the stylized wings combined with the living human form create a disturbing, transcendent work.

I will hopefully be posting more of these remastered works as I gain access to them.