Michelle Naismith and David Michael Clarke, both formerly based in Scotland, independently relocated to France following residencies in Nantes in the 1990s. Their work subsequently turned subtly towards more Francophone philosophical concerns less visible in Scotland, while retaining some of the pop qualities that were held with suspicion in France through most of the 90s. It negotiates a cultural gap in this sense.
‘Yé-Yé’ was the label given to the Francophone pop music that arose in the wake of the US and UK pop invasion of France in the 1960s. It indicates a yo-yoing between Francophone and Anglophone pop culture that is superficial and camp, but one which nevertheless might throw up different attitudes to contemporary art
practice.
Works in the exhibition draw sustenance from the worlds of music and fashion and also share a concern with fictionalising, translating and amplifying lived experience. Naismith will be screening her most recent film FEEL THE HOLLOW (2007), a tale loosely based on a woman who used to be a New York fashion photographer. Clarke will be exhibiting two projects. KILTLESS (KISS AND TELL) (2005) comprises photography, anagrams and a kissing chair (‘conversation chair’ in French). An experiment in heterophenomenology, POST GODS (2006-) features memorabilia of a trash-existentialist pop group.
Yé-Yé was curated by Neil Mulholland in collaboration with the Institut Français d’Ecosse and Edinburgh College of Art.
17 November 2007 - 10 January 2008
Institut Français d’Ecosse
13 Randolph Cresent
Edinburgh
Scotland