BOUSSA FROM THE NETHERLANDS


BERTILLE BAK

JEU DE PAUME
PARIS, FEBRUARY 13 - MAY 12, 2023









I went to the Jeu de Paume
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