Pétitwell l'intrépide

In 2017 Monsieur Pétitwell goes to Venice...

I am Michel Massi, as artist, i often use projected image and photography in installations and optical devices. In 2013, i have invented Mister Pétitwell : it is the name of a character moving and acting very simply, as a projected image in diverse size according to the spaces which the image of this character questions, with a part of auto-mockery and a part of supernatural. Monsieur Pétitwell, is going to confront his fragility and his texture of image, his unstable silhouette and his gestures in Venice, with art works and with spaces. A play of furtive hide-and-seek between appearances and disappearances in places of the city.

From where comes from Monsieur Pétitwell…flashback on main exhibitions

2004 "Ambiguous", Academy of Fine Arts of Tianjin, China: " The face of a tin soldier of the Great War, enlarged in the human scale, the video of child's face enjoying imitating the shout of the gull, and at the bottom the gallery, the shadow of a character who walks and fades in the undulations of a river. So many moments which question the game and its ambiguities, his load of concern ".

2006 "Hyperlab" Toulon. The recollections of a photography laboratory, transposed into the cage of a building and an apartment " The timer of the stairwell starts the video projection: a thick cloud of birds swirls in whirlpool and comes to invade all the space. Meanwhile, in a secondary room, images emerge from the night : ghostly faces on advertising hoardings along a highway in China … "

2008 "At twilight" School of Art and Design of Saint Etienne (3 series of photos, 10 looped videos in 2 cabins of viewing) " at twilight, it is the hour when we hesitate on what it is of visible there or not … There is a risk of making a mistake, the danger, but there are also dreams which take their place. ". Two vernissage took place: the one at a distance , with a model representing the exhibition in the gallery, the other one in the real space of the Gallery in Saint Etienne.

2011 " In the shadow of moths " Park of Ardèche mountains (night-walk of video installations) " […]now a huge silhouette appeared from the brook, below, grey shadow. Ghost? Human figure, sketched, immense body, it is as if he was just born outside his gangue of ground, there, for us. He stretches, lengthens, deforms, is transformed, exhibitions "

2013 " Sleepless night for Monsieur Pétitwell " Bookshop / Gallery Contrebandes, Toulon (video projections and video monitors). The sets of shelves of the bookshop plunged into the twilight and their fictional potential constituted a true medium for Monsieur Pétitwell's first adventures; he crosses a world tinkered by real elements and by images there, with a certain innocence.

2014 " Monsieur Pétitwell holds the ground ", at European Night of Museums, Géo- Charles museum, Echirolles (video projections and video monitors): "... Monsieur Pétitwell occupies all the museum … Here, he hangs on a cimaise but unfortunately he falls and  disappears into another work. There, he tries to unroll an immense white paper on a top of radiator, farther, in balance on a bulb, he vacillates, gets shorter, gets bigger …

2016 " The idiot and the moon ", Maison de la Photographie, Toulon (photos, video installations): " the idiot it is the curious which knows how to doubt, which looks at the point of view (Vesuvius) rather than at the view(sight) (the bay(berry) of Naples). He wants to see in the screen at the same time the image ( an hourglass) and a source(spring) of the image ( the video-projector). The idiot crosses mister Pétitwell's concerns who points(welds) in his/her/its own way the fragility of the image and the existence. »  

Monsieur Pétitwell, will confront his fragility as an image with the global celebrity of Venice during all of the Bienniale, from May till November 2017, in four places of the city : 

      CA D’ORO one of the most famous and more important museums of Venice where is the last saint

      Sébastien painted by MANTEGNA … 

      CASINO VENIER, the magnificent one "ridotto" small place of game and meeting of the 18th 

      century: where is the very dynamic French Alliance, place where the languages loosen around the

      literature and around teaching french.

      MUSEUM OF PHYSICS TRAVERSI, rich of hundreds 18th and 19th century  measure instruments of

      physics.

      ANTICA GHIACCIAIA (old icebox), small stone construction with an outstanding acoustic in the

      Boscolo Hotel garden.

In each places, video installations and specific optical devices will reveal Monsieur Pétitwell, they will put in tension this unstable human figure with the spaces saturated of works, objects, stories and signs - former, modern or contemporary. 

Monsieur Pétitwell, fragile, furtive image, will interfere in this world, will confront with it, question it with a part of visible innocence, mockery maybe, and concern. An unstable coexistence between the musing and the strengths of the present.

Begun at the end of 2014, the project takes time to meet and a lot of talking. To the Venetians indeed and also to french institutions as an Art center. 

"In bocca del luppo" as say the Venetian to give yourself some courage ! Avanti !

Thanks to Roberto, Claudia, Nunzia, Giulia,Gabriella, Ornella, Massimo, Pierandrea, Lara qui animent ces lieux fameux, thanks also to Enrico, Aina, Cinzia, Angela, Minas, Elisabetta…and of course to Marnie Evits

The project comes out in may 2017, but important details remain to settle; your help is going to be very precious to lead this ambitious project to its term.