Laurent Fiévet

Shown for the first time at the Hyvinkää Art Museum (Finland), Tests of time is a collection of eight installations consisting of a series of proposals based on self-portraits by Helene Schjerfbeck (1862-1946), a major figure from Finnish painting in the first half of the 20th century, and on Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds (1963). According to the artist’s theories the film was, in part, inspired by the paintings.

However disturbing the exhibition may seem, it seeks less to substantiate this influence than to maintain a dynamic tension between the film and paintings, which serves as a means of proposing various poetic interpretations. Laurent Fiévet not only examines issues relating to Image and its prominence, but also provides various critical reflections on and around the title of the exhibition. The installations broach such themes as the passage, measure and distortion of time; the perception, universality and perennial nature of works of art; the vulnerability and awareness of the individual faced with death; difficulties of definition and identity.

Because they are interactive, a number of the installations require the visitor to adopt an introspective approach similar to that adopted by Helene Schjerfbeck and Alfred Hitchcock in their work. The installations confront the visitor with his past or his future, forcing him to suffer the passage of Time or measure the depth of the wounds that its passage inflicts.