Glenda Cinquegrana Art Consulting is proud to present
From November 21st to 30th, 2024.
On our Artsy page
Glenda Cinquegrana Art Consulting is pleased to present an OVR dedicated to the work of the French duo Mazaccio & Drowilal, Elise Mazac and Robert Drowilal. Their aim is to emphasize humanity’s complete dependence on the sterile void of consumerism. The genesis of this duo dates back to 2011, amidst the hum of washing machines in a laundromat in Villefranche-de-Rouergue and the flipping through pages of celebrity gossip magazines in a waiting room. Their first series, Paparazzi, was born, particularly with the piece Starbucks, where stars are reduced to banal situations, caught in the grip of their caffeine and sugar fix, and ridiculed as they seem to play or, as Robert says, “perform.”
In the Paparazzi project, Mazaccio & Drowilal superimpose cut-out silhouettes of celebrities from tabloids onto idealized natural backdrops, positioning them in stadiums and urban streets.
“The inscrutable figures of movie posters are here reduced to banality (walking the dog while it does its business) or herd behavior (wearing the same Canada Goose parka, practicing yoga or golf). In a sort of reverse Warholian fifteen minutes of fame, stars are captured in mundane acts like pushing a shopping cart full of toilet paper rolls. In this way, the paparazzi’s subject is ennobled.”
(Le Monde, 2021, article “La République des People,” pp. 58–65).
The duo proposes a neologism to encapsulate their approach: collimages.
“Today, images are easy to find,” observes Robert Drowilal. “For Lindsay Lohan picking up her dog’s poop, we can get up to fifty frames, breaking down the action in high definition.” Playing with visual stereotypes, the French duo creates surreal and ironic universes that invite viewers to ponder the boundaries between reality and fiction.
“Who creates the image? What role do spontaneity and staging play in what we see? Why do these banal scenes fascinate us? In ten years, no one has complained—not the photographer, nor the star. Not even Angelina Jolie, who visited Colette in 2014, where some of our works were on display. Within the collage of stars strolling with their children in strollers, the actress could spot, at the center, her then-husband, Brad Pitt, and two of their children. ‘She seemed to laugh….’ Amid this sea of celebrities, observant viewers will notice two exceptions: the silhouettes of Élise and Robert, mischievously placed within… A sort of game like Where’s Waldo?, so much does the ordinary resemble the ordinary. Mazaccio & Drowilal, no less stars among the stars.”
(Le Monde, 2021, article “La République des People,” pp. 58–65).
