BOUSSA FROM THE NETHERLANDS
BERTILLE BAK
JEU DE PAUME
PARIS, FEBRUARY 13 - MAY 12, 2023
for another exhibition
and ended up in the basement
glued to the screens
of Bertille Bak
And there were a lot of screens
in this installation exhibition
In a triptych from 2017
"Boussa from the Netherlands"
women in Morocco
are peeling North Sea shrimp
for a Dutch company
An icy world
white and sky-blue
A bare hands' job
around tables
Repetitive gestures
in three steps
Breaking the neck
remove flesh from tail
throw away head and shell
And then start again
in front of these piles
of little gray things
The women wear
the typical outfits
of industrial slaughterhouses
but with the particularity
of having knotted
yellowish sheepskins
to the front and the back
of their body
Skins that
are prepared
in unsavoury basins
And then these women
in djellaba
are walking through
narrow streets
with large enamel salad bowls
filled with what appear to be shrimps
But which are actually
their remains
salvaged in order to extract
their EYES
with scissors
Little dark black balls
removed from the slime
placed on a plate
to be baked
in a collective oven
and then covered
with nail polish
green, white, red and blue
in the colors of Morocco and the Netherlands
to be poured into souvenir bottles
which take their place in the installation
"Boussa from the Netherlands 2"
Bottles that I begin
to examine closely
thinking of shrimp eyes
and the tweezing
to coat them with varnish
Hours of work that add up
to other hours of work
to accumulate euros and cents
And shrimps that don't even have eyes to cry
And sheep with no skin left on their bones
"Boussa from the Netherlands 3"
A group of veiled women
dressed in bright colors
adorned with mermaid tails
sitting in front of a blackboard
to learn The international
in DUTCH
Ontwaakt! verworpenen der Aarde Ontwaakt!
Ontwaakt! verdoemd in hong‘ren sfeer
Reed‘lijk willen stroomt over de Aarde
en die stroom rijst al meer en meer
Sterft, gij oude vormen en gedachten
Slaaf geboor‘nen, ontwaakt! ontwaakt!
De wereld steunt op nieuwe krachten
begeerte heeft ons aangeraakt
They sing with raised fists
this text
phonetically impossible
for non-natives
I'm disoriented
and I will feel the same
in front of all the videos
of Bertille Bak
Magnetized by
the humor, poetry
and aesthetics
of the installations and images
Unique in their kind
except perhaps an echo
of Jacques Tati's Mon Oncle
I'm also experimenting
another way
of being a spectator
Hypnotic activation
of my brain
Is it possible?
Come on!
I can't believe it!
The more I look
(and I'm really glued to the screens)
the more I feel
I'm making possible
what the artist
and the protagonists
have fantasised
Not to reform
a system
OUT OF BREATH
(the title of the exhibition is
ABUS DE SOUFFLE)
but rather a deep longing
for something else
Roshan Di Puppo