Just the two of us: vidéo sentimentale

A new generation of artists born around 1970, emerging in the late 1990s, is redefining film and video installation by reintroducing emotion and affect. Rejecting the 'nostalgia for cinema' and the deconstructive approach of predecessors like Pierre Huyghe, Douglas Gordon, and Doug Aitken, these artists focus on interpersonal, often dyadic relationships, exploring love-hate, attraction-repulsion, and separation anxiety. The article, written by Christine Macel, curator at the Centre Pompidou, highlights three artists: Salla Tykkä, Runa Islam, and Maria Marshall. Tykkä's works like 'Power' (1999) and 'Lasso' (2000) examine gender dynamics and sibling relationships, using B-movie and spaghetti western references. Islam's installations, such as 'Tuin' and 'Director's Cut (Fool for love)', analyze romantic relationships through cinematic techniques inspired by Fassbinder, Godard, and Antonioni. Marshall's projections, including 'When I Grow Up I Want to be a Cooker' (1998) and 'Cyclops' (2002), explore mother-child bonds and childhood fragility. The article situates this trend within a revival of Romanticism, as articulated by Novalis and theorists Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, opposing cynicism and disenchantment. The artists include Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Alice Anderson, Emmanuelle Antille, Laetitia Bénat, and Shahryar Nashat.