Le dernier cri

Le dernier cri
10.14–11.20.2004
Room 1

DC 10 / Vomir des yeux

xxxhibition collective 10 ans de dernier cri

Ms. Bastian, Antoine Berhnart, Pakito Bolino, Marco Corona, Mike Diana, Donato di Nunno, Fredox, Matti Hagelberg, Jeu de l’Oie, Kapreles, Reijo Karkkäinen, Kerozén, Laetitia, Matthias Lehmann, Léo, Ludovic Levasseur, Liquide de la Tête, Moulinex, Takashi Nemoto, Nuvish, Keiti Ota, Pigassou, Frédéric Poincelet, Raymond Reynaud, Marcel Ruijters, Reinhard Scheibner, Stu Mead, Caroline Sury, Valium.

Marseille based Le Dernier Cri is an underground artists collective publishing printed artwork, films and multimedia productions.

“The French expression le dernier cri translates idiomatically as the latest fashion, but literally as the last cry, as of a dying culture. LDC has, over the past 10 years, managed to tread a fine line between the two – issuing a torrent of urgent, violently apocalyptic picture books that showcase the most exciting international graphic artists around in a medium rooted in the independent production and distribution strategies of the ’90s zine underground.”

The group proposed to CLARK a show presenting an overview of their torrential production and their latest film Les religions sauvages.

The status of today’s comic book remains ambiguous. Unknown and misunderstood, this form of expression is often considered simply a distraction and surely “a lesser form of art” – a perception that its creators and enthusiasts attempt to dispel, notably by diversifying the ways that it circulates and is distributed within contemporary culture. This exhibition at galerie CLARK, an impressive selection of drawings, silkscreens, paintings and animations from the collective Le Dernier Cri, offers the opportunity to explore the unrestrained universes of over thirty artists considered to be among the most irreverent international comic book artists.

Founded in France by Pakito Bolino and Caroline Sury, Le Dernier Cri, in the last ten years of its existence has forged a niche in the comic book underground. The association still retains the spirit of revolt, extravagance and liberty which inspired its creation.

More than the publication of a regularily, recurring magazine, (of the same name) and monographs primarily of silkscreens, LDC also produces animated films (Hôpital brut, 1999 et Les religions sauvages, 2004).

To date, with the help of their prolific and delightfully decadent collaborators, LDC has published close to 150 titles, where their primary concern. is outlining society’s taboos. With ecclectic formalist, stylistic and thematic aspects, the productions of Le Dernier Cri converge on a common goal: highlighting the habits and gestures of humans through the unrestrained use of absurd, black, and biting humour. One could say that the artists of Le Dernier Cri work with a devilish delight in misrepresenting the naive, morally irreproachable and asexual image of our childhood comic book heroes.

NdeB.

Translated from french by Karen Trask.