Guest
Contemporary cinematic arts continue to provide us with wonders in the intersection of art history and ethnography, this generous crossroad learnt from the most fertile plastics and speculative initiatives since late nineteenth century. One thinks, the day before yesterday, about Einstein and his Documents, yesterday about Jean Rouch, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Raymonde Carasco & Régis Hébraud and today about Tiane Doan na Champassak & Jean Dubrel, Ben Russell or John Skoog. Within this constellation, the work of Eric and Marc Hurtado, separately or together as Etánt Donnes, strikes us for its enchanted character in perpetual search of ecstasy, drawing on centuries of poetry sources from Hesiod to Brion Gysin to Raimbaut of Orange. Writers, musicians, performers, Eric and Marc Hurtado have worked with Alan Vega, Genesis P-Orridge, Lydia Lunch, and Philippe Grandrieux. For decades, they left us thinking that their splendid films in 8mm, pantheistic odes to the intensities of the world, were the fruits of a symbiotic partnership – until they revealed in 2008 that Marc was only the author at the times where Jajouka’s production required a great creative clarity.
