Made in Paris: French Video and Photography in London

Made in Paris, a festival initiated by the French Embassy in London, showcased 63 French artists across 20 galleries from April 4 to August 17, 2003. The event aimed to convince the British art market of the value of French video and photography. British curators were given carte blanche to select artists, resulting in a panorama of the French audiovisual scene from established names to recent graduates. The festival opened at David Gill Gallery with a display from the Maison Européenne de la Photographie. Highlights included the ICA showing films by Pierre Huyghe (Blanche-Neige Lucie, 1999) and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (Riyo, 1999) over two days; Frith Street Gallery incorporating Chantal Akerman's work in its group show Frequencies; Chisenhale Gallery presenting Marine Hugonnier's video Ariana (2003); and MW Projects exhibiting related photographs. Iniva featured four artists exploring differences between Islamic and Western representation and women's conditions in totalitarian countries. The Centre of Attention, a mobile gallery in an apartment, showed works by recent Beaux-Arts graduates, including David Cousinard's performance Tetris (2002). The festival coincided with a major retrospective of fashion photographer Guy Bourdin at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The selections were deemed objective, and the project was seen as a modest but successful establishment of French photography and video in Britain.