IN TRIBUTE TO MADAME DE POMPADOUR AND THE COURT OF LOUIS XV (1992)

 

The third version of a 3-week performance at Kettles Yard, Cambridge.

 

• Film has been optically printed on 16 mm B&W Negative film with new sequences and titles added for projection at the ICA Boston 1992.
• Camera P.E.L, under restoration.

 

 

ABOUT "IN TRIBUTE TO MADAME DE POMPADOUR AND THE COURT OF LOUIS XV"

 

In Tribute to Madame de Pompadour and the Court of Louis XV the installation is an elaborate machine evoking a celebration of the Enlightenment in eighteenth century France, focusing on the cultural, economic, and political systems at Versailles, particularly Madame de Pompadour’s relationship to Louis XV and his various courtiers. When operative, live bees and snails run the machine’s main conical structure. The bees produce the cultural wealth (honey) of the society and the snails (courtiers) consume and distribute it for various physical and symbolic purposes. The machine is an intricate model of a society, one incapable