Memento Mori
2012, video, HDCAM 16:9, colour, 64 min
In a static shot, five wolves emerge from the fog. They roam like prisoners through an artificial space resembling a blend between a playground, an opera set and a zoo enclosure. « Memento Mori » is a video tableau accompanying an oratorio composed of unpublished moral cantatas by composer Luigi Rossi and spiritual madrigals by Claudio Monteverdi. The work is presented in the form of a vanitas, an expression of man’s finitude and the emptiness of existence. The musical proposal, conceived by Geoffroy Jourdain, flanks Benjamin Lazar’s reading of the «Sermon du Mauvais Riche» (Sermon of the evil rich man), one of Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet’s most famous texts. Pronounced in 1662 at the Louvre in front of the king and his court, the sermon represented the first time the royal power was politically confronted with the question of wealth sharing. «To follow a small pack, captive and resigned, as it roams in real time. Telling death like a children’s story. Crossing a purgatory with boredom and fright. To film an enclosure like a still life.» Clément Cogitore
