Rémi VOCHE (FR)
L'homme moderne (2017)
Rémi Voche, a performer-photographer, stands as a long-distance runner. His artistic physiology entirely fits in a rhythm, a two-steps, lasting longer than the average and almost indefinitely, according to his relatives. A simple rule applies as the premise of this perpetual motion : all that surrounds him, goes through him and electrifies him. He reacts to the images of the world as a photovoltaic panel or a chlorophyll cell. Without being exhaustive, we could of course mention a few prime figures dwelling in the entrance of his system : Albert Dupontel and Arthur Cravan, cowboys and indians, Jean Rouch and Michael Powell, Zatopek and voodoo sorcerers. But, on the exit - in other words during performances - reference levels are oddly getting confused for being unfolded for sure. (...)
Anything would be more senseless than trying to call him in a "history of performance" - even more in the relevance of its suspected "come-back" - since his effect, for the public, is at first the break-up of the idea of chronology. Rémi Voche doesn't come after Chris Burden or Marina Abramovic. He doesn't re-enact anything. He generally gives the impression of coming from before and from elsewhere. That doesn't mean that he's unaware of his history, or that he doesn't know his work could be the mysterious effect of a spontaneous generation. He rather deeply belongs to our time but in another direction, completely opposite. His anarchical way to ceaselessly digest, and instantly remodel, a set of close and distant, outlandish or endogenous, references is rather synchronous to the academic challenge of the occidental "straight story", to the oriented figure of his lineage.
Patrice Blouin, june 2012
http://remivoche.com/
