Extension vidéo, corps et figures at Maison de la Culture, Amiens

From April 5 to June 6, 2007, the Maison de la Culture in Amiens hosted 'Extension vidéo, corps et figures', an exhibition of six major video installations from the Mnam collection. Curated by Françoise Parfait, the show explored archetypes of the filmed body and the spectator, juxtaposing real and imaginary bodies. Works included Salla Tykkä's 'Lasso' (2000), Marcel Odenbach's 'La Vision périphérique du témoin', Peter Land's 'The Staircase', Fiona Tan's 'Touareg', Pierre Huyghe's 'Dubbing', and a portrait by Karl-Hartmut Lerch and Claus Holtz. The exhibition began in a dark space with Tykkä's piece, where a girl watches her brother lassoing, his muscular body exuding sensuality before the rope falls and the camera turns away. Odenbach's work placed viewers in armchairs facing a monitor split by a band, juxtaposing contemporary Paris with the court of Versailles, allowing ideas to circulate across eras while spectators remained immobile. The show emphasized scenography, with Odenbach's armchair reproduced in cardboard to highlight ephemerality and modularity. It also included an educational component, created with the University of Picardy Jules Verne, which hosted the Mnam's New Media collection that winter. The exhibition was noted for its exceptional handling of video installation challenges such as soundproofing, lighting, and temporal management, making it a rare example of thoughtful video display.