Paul Heintz
De Façade - Installation - 2016
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 18
By combining lived situations and invented scenes, Paul Heintz’s creations lead us, in two stages, to go beyond what we think we see and to think reality. The incidents or absurd actions performed in his films are, although highly theatrical and imaginary, part of a search for meaning.
Paul Heintz reflects on perception and its construction, working on the image and its illusions. He is constantly reminding us that – even if it is a construction, a fool’s game that the viewer, aware of the deceit, still loves to play – the image partakes of our overall vision of the world. He materialises this incessant to-and-fro between the real and the imaginary by the use of movement, notably tracking shots in his films and moving elements in his installations, thereby suggesting new viewpoints.
With De Façade, Paul Heintz goes back to the origins of cinema, to its mechanical dimension, possibly reminding us of magic lanterns, of the time when projections were manual. He creates a set-up that gives viewers the feeling they are watching a vertical travelling shot along the façade of a building. This is an illusion, for what is shown, this façade of a building, refers us to the history of a construction whose interior we have no way of guessing at. The light and sound of this work on the play of appearances leads the viewer onto a fictional terrain open to all interpretations.
Valérie Toubas and Daniel Guionnet, Point Contemporain
Paul Heintz
Paul Heintz, a graduate from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Nancy and Ecole des Arts Décoratifs de Paris was born in 1989 in Saint-Avold (France). Paul Heintz explores a bizarre set of cases where what is real is largely imbued with fiction, and where expected behaviour also makes its impact felt. There is an inherent toxicity to imagination and fiction when they combine their approval of the social norm, as is the case with storytelling for example. From there, Paul Heintz enters the logic of fiction, takes it further and lets a redeeming current seep through.
His work invests objects, sound, video and installation and has been presented at contemporary art events such as Le Salon de Montrouge, Paris Nuit Blanche and Circulation(s), the festival of young European photography. He is currently living and working in Paris as well as in Lille in France, where he is a student at Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains.
Production
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Mehdi Ahoudig, Randa Maroufi, Alain Le Béon, Christophe Gregório, Léo Pacquelet, à Manuel Bello Marcado, Michel Vandestien, José Froment, Annonciade Sauli, Fantin Leroux,The neighbors of 145 rue La Fayette and the artists and the staff of Fresnoy.
