Véronique Boudier's 'Tous les feux, le feu' at Galerie Chez Valentin

Véronique Boudier's exhibition 'Tous les feux, le feu' at Galerie Chez Valentin in Paris (November 22 – December 22, 2008) features a deliberately failed video at the entrance and a 59-minute film 'Nuit d'un jour' in the back room. The film, shot with a collaborator using two cameras, captures only spectators returning from a fireworks display that is never shown; subtitles comment on this failure. Another work, 'Deu vie', asserts that all art fails relative to its initial vision. The main film presents a fixed wide shot of a living room set where flames gradually consume the furniture, revealing a painted backdrop of a night landscape. As dawn breaks, the set's reverse side shows hills and tall grass; smoke and fog merge into a white fade. Critic Michel Nuridsany calls it a masterpiece of risk and transformation. The exhibition title references Julio Cortázar's short story collection.