2003 Manifeste Emergency Room .Concept Art in the city : the wide , wild world of Colonel the Copenhagen post by Rebecca Engmann mars 2003

the Copenhagen post by Rebecca Engmann mars 2003

www.colonel.dk

French-Danish conceptual artist Thierry Geoffroy, alias Colonel, is making waves at home and abroad with daring multimedia art projects that challenge the traditional boundaries of artistic space.

Faithful viewers of DR2 may recognize Thierry Geoffroy-Colonel from his incorrigible docu-comedy, ‘The Immigrant,’ in which the French-Danish artist plays the part of a Peter Sellers-style immigrant on a mission to earn the love of the Danes. Likewise, in the 1999 eight-episode series ‘Capitain,’ Colonel sets out on a search for Danish 'hygge' and identity, interacting with random Danes on the street with an irresistible naïveté - innocently asking passersby if Denmark has won a war against NATO, or approaching strangers to ask for photocopies of their money.

‘Being a Frenchman in Denmark is just like being an Italian or a Moroccan - as a Southerner, you are suspect because you speak too loudly. Besides, having a French accent is humourous, which can be used as a tool for entertainment. [In the DR documentaries] I am what people expect me to be,’ the artist said, speaking with the Copenhagen Post on a sunny day on Nyhavn.

Like many conceptual artists, Colonel is full of wry axioms on the state of art and humanity. Hannover's Sprengel Museum reported in conjunction with a media retrospective of Colonel's works of the past decade that the artist keeps painstaking tabs on audience demographics for his DR documentaries, noting 'Men aged 30-40 hate these films.'

‘The most important ingredient in conceptual art is accessing people, and humour is a valuable tool in accessing people…It was difficult to bring the work to Danish television, but once I did so, it was OK because they didn't interfere. I wanted to prove that artists have to use mass media as just another open space.’

Colonel - the curious nom de guerre is borrowed from his father, who served in the French colonies during Thierry's childhood - has lived in Denmark off and on for the past two decades. He cites thoroughly French influences, Marcel Duchamp and postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard, for his impressive body of work - which could explain why his presence on the Copenhagen art scene is so singular.

‘It's difficult to find representation as a conceptual artist in Copenhagen - They don't really understand me in some ways,’ explains Colonel. Despite his status as the odd man out in Copenhagen, Colonel has enjoyed a string of successes in Germany, whose art scene - still informed by the legacy of Joseph Beuys - has long embraced conceptual artists. Likewise, Colonel won the highest order of the French Ministry of Culture - the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres - just last month: an honour matched by just one other Dane of late, director Lars von Trier.

Colonel's latest concept is a manifesto for the formation of artistic 'Emergency Rooms': spaces where artists can react and respond to news events on the walls of major artistic institutions. The objective, says Colonel, is to create the same immediacy in art that exists in mass media.

'I believe that artists are thermometers for society, and that we have to give them a voice in real time,' he says. 'Why should we, as artists, produce more material? There's already enough. Why should I think about the way the media works, when I already know what they're going to put on the front page? Once you observe the way the media worked last year, you can see how they're going to work next week.'

Hand in hand with this relentless churning of the media machine, Colonel says, is the slow pace of traditional art exhibition - 'Emergency Rooms' will crank up the speed of the art world.

In addition to his next docu-comedy, ‘Colonel Photographe,’ set for broadcast on DR2 throughout the year, Colonel will feature at a group exhibition, ‘Undercover,’ at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde. ‘Undercover’ opens this Friday. The first Danish ‘Emergency Room’ will open at Nikolaj Contemporary Art Center in mid-April.

Artgoers can discover more about the artist, his work, and his manifesto at the official Colonel website, www.colonel.dk.

Taken on: March 9, 2011

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