Laurent Montaron at Schleicher + Lange

The talented young French artist Laurent Montaron employs classic cinematic techniques to produce color videos that are deceptively simple. His new exhibition centered on two short examples that combine elegant tracking shots, eerie soundtracks and understated though indelibly powerful images.

In Rounded with a Sleep (2006), a group of teenagers slowly wander over barren hillsides, the wind swirling. They are instantly recognizable as disaffected and rebellious, and they defiantly hide their own vulnerabilities. Montaron casually lingers on their faces, capturing a sense of oppressive boredom in a seamlessly looped video of unspecified duration. We don't know what the teenagers mean to be doing out on the moors--any more, perhaps, than they know themselves.

The pervading atmosphere of detachment is punctured by a boy jumping up and down, his heavy breathing distinctly audible. His friend, standing behind him, puts his arms around the boy and pulls strongly, and he loses his breath even further, a near asphyxiation that produces a cheap high. The boy collapses into the grass, his eyes flickering in and out of consciousness, the camera remaining on his freckled face. As a haunting portrait of the damage we can wreak on ourselves, it's all the more effective because it arrives slowly, through Montaron's methodical pacing. This is assured filmmaking, succinctly revealing the lonely nature of a brief, undeterred rebellion.

Montaron does not dwell exclusively on despair. Readings (2005, 14 minutes)involves a slow, meticulously shot tour of a large astronomical observatory. As the camera pans around the massive domed structure, brief enigmatic fragments of text appear at the bottom of the screen: "The wish you have made has not yet come true"; "Even if on the surface everything seems fine." These are lines a fortune teller spoke to the artist while examining his palm, and they hint at the fragility of improbable dreams. We know we shouldn't believe "you'll soon be getting the break you've been waiting for," yet we cannot help but hope. The final image of two men in lab coats is perhaps too open-ended a metaphor--are they scientists representing rational thought? Yet Montaron succeeds in using the seductive power of cinema to reveal truths about ourselves that we would rather avoid. He creates an atmosphere in which images betray the weaknesses and desires--whether adolescent dreams of escape, or dubious faith in fortune tellers--that ultimately make us more human.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning