For L.F.D.A. 02.

Continuing his exploration of the codified language of images, James Coleman presents a video work at La Force de l’Art 02, projected in full daylight onto a large screen, showing the making of a photographic reconstruction of a print by American lithographers Currier & Ives, depicting the first major land battle of the American Civil War, the First Battle of Bull Run, also known as the First Battle of Manassas (21 July 1861).

Shot in a setting similar to that seen in the original lithograph, the scene is peopled with figures in period dress, re-enacting the confrontation. But as the camera rolls, new elements disrupt the narrative. Some groups of actors seem to be rehearsing their roles in a corner, rather than acting out the scene, and the complete film crew (cameraman, lighting director, make-up artist etc.) is also clearly visible, so that the video becomes at once an animated reproduction of Currier & Ives’s print, and a documentary of the making of the film itself. Combining elements of performance, theatre and cinema, the film plays on the ambivalent frontiers between fiction and reality, challenging and undermining our expectations. All the more so when we see that the clear image perceived at a certain distance from the screen becomes increasingly pixellated as we move nearer, before finally becoming completely illegible.

In the space of a few minutes, James Coleman decomposes the different stages involved in the creation of the image, disrupting our habitual “reading” of scenes such as this, and inviting us to test and analyse our relationship to the picture before us.  [M.A.]

James Coleman

James Coleman’s work concentrates on analyzing the codified language of images. Using principally photography, film and slide projections, the artist introduces slight discrepancies into his images to disturb their usual reading. In doing this, James Coleman invites us to return to a time of observation, necessary for establishing any critical distance. [M. A.]

James Coleman causes the visitor to penetrate the process by which a stage is set, in the literal sense of the term, for a key battle in American history; through various disturbances of his visual perceptions, the visitor is brought to reflect on the challenges of filmed imagery.

James Coleman was born in Ballagharderreen (Ireland) in 1941.
He lives and works in Dublin and in Paris.

James Coleman
Retake with evidence with Harvey Keitel