Allora & Calzadilla Confront Katrina Aftermath at Chantal Crousel

The third exhibition by Jennifer Allora (b. 1974, USA) and Guillermo Calzadilla (b. 1974, Cuba) at Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris, running from September 4 to October 16, 2010, grapples with the problem of testimony. The five works all engage with a real event: the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. The most accomplished piece is the video "A Man Screaming is Not a Dancing Bear" (2008), made weeks after the disaster, which alternates abstract shots of devastated interiors, long tracking shots through bayous, and close-ups of a jazz drummer playing on window blinds. Its syncopated rhythm tests the image as document, echoing Chris Marker's line from "Immemory": memory's mechanism can be used to reinvent life and conquer death. Other works include "Scale of Justice Carried by Shore Foam" (2010), a large salt structure topped with a justice scale; "Petrified Petrol Pump" (2010), a fossilized stone gas pump; "The Camel's Humps and the Ironing Board" (2010), a stuffed Bactrian camel skin on an ironing board; and "Forecast" (2010), a photograph of a fishing net thrown into a river. Critic Damien Sausset notes that while some pieces feel overly direct, the stronger works transcend formal inquiry through strangeness and suspended narrative.