About —
The Lovers of Beaubourg is a digital animation by the American-Korean group YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES commissioned by the Centre Pompidou in 2007 to celebrate its 30th anniversary. The artists were inspired by the inaugural exhibition of the Center in 1977 dedicated to Marcel Duchamp.
The work is a combination of digital literature and net.art. It forges a world made solely of narratives, written in black on a white background. The texts take up the entire screen and deliberately forgo any form of illustration. The work is minimalist: it consists only of this writing that scrolls down like a musical score to the sounds of jazz. The text deals with the life and the work of Duchamp, and in particular with his “genius,” his ideas and his contribution to the visual arts. In typical Duchamp fashion, the artists have constructed a narrative that challenges stylistics: here and there an anecdote is inserted or some advice to budding artists designed to instil in them the duchampian method which turns everything into art and everyone into an artist. The proposition is the polar opposite of Web 2.0, for it avoids all interaction with the viewer. Nevertheless, as the words appear at an ever quicker pace, reading becomes difficult, and one needs to concentrate. Thus, the experience of the work is not passive and rarely does it leave the reader cold.
YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES is based in Seoul and its members are Young-Hae Chang and Marc Voge. These works are presented in over sixteen languages and have been screened in the most famous art institutions and the most important biennial exhibitions all over the world.
