Froment fromenté

mise-en-scène, CAG, 2014, curated by Shawn Dacey

(...)You created a cabaret inside an exhibition by Aurélien Froment (Fröbel Fröbeled). You called it a tight critique in loose pants, about preppy art that travels well, folding the entire show inside a tupperware demonstratiom, while your assistants were cutting perfect llines of ritalin and aderol on the fashionable grids. You offended the gallery director, he did not show up...

-Nigel did not show up because he had heard rumours that we asked a bunch of Down Syndrome citizens to 'come play dress up, and go hug Nigel', which was true. The woman at the Institute insisted that people operating with Trisomy 21 'strive to be normal and lead normal lives' and that our project is stigmatizing them. We insisted that normality was questionable. Ovide's presence helped us look normal for the meeting. We often used him as a front, a secret weapon, everytime we needed to look normal or excellent, everytime we returned something to the store or met with a banker. We always needed to have someone looking very sane and wise, as part of the entourage, when we had to ask the impossible. We eventually dropped the Down Syndrome idea. Everything was hapening so fast at thee time, we basically produced one happening a month. It took a lot of energy to mobilize, and of course even more energy to deal with the aftermath of each project, casualties, which became part of our practice (...) (excerpt from Numéro comique, the serial)

Photos courtesy of Kathrine Braga,Tanya Crail, Owen Ellis, Patrick Campbell