Le Lente Passioni

Ellen de Bruijne PROJECTS, Amsterdam (NL), April – May 2023

During the first Italian confinement of 2020, Pauline Curnier Jardin collected and edited a series of videos from a Facebook group of ethnomusicologists. The scenes show different Easter masses and processions in Catholic Europe, mostly in Italy. In a lockdown society, religious ceremonies and rituals could not be done collectively, forcing believers to attend them virtually. Curnier Jardin amassed a rich archive of ritualistic footage from before and during confinement and created a polyphonic compilation of collective religious emotion.  
Pauline Curnier Jardin develops a powerful empathy for believers which can be seen in the way her films restore a carnal presence in the world. Alternately fiery and baroque, kitsch and sensual, erotic and bloody, the work of Pauline Curnier Jardin analyses in action the societal structures specific to the communities of southern Europe. Far from any objectification, the filmic eye of Pauline Curnier Jardin examines behaviours and beliefs in a way that favours action over concept, lived experience over bookish knowledge.
In a tripartite structure, at the crossroads of a church confessional, a domestic space and a camping site, the film is broadcast on a television that seems to take the place of the altar and the officiant.
Religious rites mingle with mundane ones. The television, the filmic eye, the gaze of the believer/spectator and the confessional window intertwine in a complex web of scopic devices. The panopticon, the confessional and the dinette merge into each other.

The installation has previously been shown at ARCOmadrid, in the section The Mediterranean: A Round Sea curated by Marina Fokidis.

Views of the exhibition Le Lente Passioni, Ellen de Bruijne PROJECTS, Amsterdam (NL)
Photos: Gert Jan van Rooij

Pauline Curnier Jardin
Le Lente Passioni, 2020-2023
Installation with HD video (30 min. loop) on screen, wood construction with printed tarpaulin and plexiglass windows, glass birds, plants, chairs, golden carpet, theatre lamp
Courtesy: the artist and Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam

Pauline Curnier
What is it, Maria, 2023
Print on rubber fabric with oil paint stick and plastic butterflies
Courtesy: the artist and Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam

Pauline Curnier
des œufs, du pain, des enfants et de l’herbe (some eggs, some bread, some children and grass), 2023
Print on rubber fabric with oil paint stick
Courtesy: the artist and Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam

Pauline Curnier
durata di cera for far to ashes (wax duration for fat to ashes), 2021
Blessed candle of bee wax made for the devotion to Santa Agata, foam, resin, sugar
Courtesy: the artist and Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam

Pauline Curnier
Langueur, Cannoli, Coco (l’été ) – (Sadness, Cannoli and Coco- (Summer), 2016
Acrylic Paint, ceramics, resin and coconut-shell on rubber, with metal (white) hanging system on the wall
Courtesy: the artist and Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam

Pauline Curnier
Fontaine (Fountain), 2016
Acrylic paint on liner on wood with lead borders, collage pieces with rubber, oil paint stick, plastic finger and oyster
Courtesy: the artist and Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam