Pierre Bismuth's Chance-Based Works at Brétigny Centre d'Art

At the Centre d'art contemporain in Brétigny-Sur-Orge, France, Pierre Bismuth's exhibition ran from March 18 to May 5, 2001. The show featured works centered on randomness and viewer participation. 'En attendant quelques coïncidences de Pierre Bismuth' juxtaposes two televisions permanently tuned to different channels, eliminating authorial choice and making each viewer's montage unique. 'Respect the Dead' compiles famous films—'The Godfather,' 'Vertigo,' 'Jaws'—stopping at the first killed character. 'Wearing the name of somebody you might never meet' consists of T-shirts printed with randomly selected phone subscribers' names. More substantial pieces include the 'Journaux' series, where the same image appears twice on the front pages of different newspapers, dramatizing events similarly to Warhol's 'Crashed Cars.' The film 'Link' continuously adds sequences of televisions playing excerpts from Mankiewicz's 'Sleuth,' testing viewers' memory to reconstruct the full film. Bismuth also participated in the French pavilion at the Venice Biennale.