14 December 2011
Lili Reynaud Dewar
The work of Lili Reynaud-Dewar (b. 1975) consists of many different elements, including sculpture, performance, film and drawing and is so rich and heterogeneous that it is hard to define. There is almost always a performance, imbedded in a complex framework of images, video, costumes, installations and texts. She herself once described her exhibitions as ‘environments for performances’, which are often performed prior to the opening, with Reynaud-Dewar, her costume designer and her video assistant as the only spectators. For example, she gave a provocative homage to the oeuvre of the renowned designer Ettore Sottsass during the Berlin Biennale in 2008, by extensively citing his critical writings on design against a background of 1960s Sottsass furniture and mirrors (Reynaud-Dewar loves mirrors). In the Kunsthalle Basel in 2010, Sun Ra was the subject of a complex reconstruction, spread out over two rooms, of a visit by her parents to a Sun Ra concert in 1970 in Fondation Maeght in the South of France. Part of the reconstruction is a video of a performance by her mother, who partially recalls her visit to the concert. Reynaud-Dewar confronts her mother altogether with the recordings of the concert and with the impressive cultural heritage of the famous, visionary jazz musician. On the wall hang drawings of Sun Ra’s pamphlets, which are copied on large cardboard panels. In 2010 they were exhibited in Witte de With in Rotterdam.