SUPREMATISME POUR L'AUTO DEFENSE

of FATMI Mounir

FRANCE, 2006-2009, 01:4::31

Production : STUDIO FATMI
Genre : Video art

Summary :

"(…)Fatmi’s video Suprematism for Self-Defense, 2006-2009 deals with the BPP and the FBI’s surveillance of the group. A large portion of the 2000 files the Bureau released on the BPP was blacked out before their release, judged too sensitive for public consumption. Mobilizing this mottled collection of documents, in this video, Fatmi digitally erased all of the text that was deemed permissible, leaving only the black stripes and squares wielded to censor information. The result recalls Malevich’s Suprematist works, ideologically charged canvases that celebrated abstraction, technology and “objectless” philosophy. The thick black stripes that efface the collected information slowly accumulate on a white background, along with numbered codes, a stamped seal and a signature. There is no sound, just the steady assembly of black marks. The process continues until Fatmi’s screen goes entirely black. Can it be a coincidence that Ad Reinhardt was making his black monochromes at the height of Edgar Hoover’s career at the head of the FBI? (…)"

Lillian Davies, Excerpt from Suspect Language, Skira, 201

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