Courtesy Clément Courgeon
Courtesy Clément Courgeon
Performance by Clément Courgeon
Drawing on his recent research on wrestling, Clément Courgeon will propose a performance which will go through the history of the sport and its ramifications at the crossroads of several cultural, popular, folk and carnival traditions. Playing on its codes and references borrowing both from circus shows and Commedia dell’arte, this performance will explore the narrative, comical and cathartic potential of wrestling through different interactive situations featuring wrestlers and the audience.
Clément Courgeon
Clément Courgeon’s multidisciplinary work focuses on character creation – the buffoon, the hawker, the woodman, the Piggy-Bank prince – who each come with costumes, accessories or mobile scuptures which can welcome performances. Inspired by medieval carnival and folk traditions as well as by popular contemporary practices such as wrestling, his work, often described as “grotesque pop”, shakes up artistic conventions and social constructions, questioning our relationship to marginality and farce. His work has been shown in group exhibitions at the Beaux-arts de Paris (2020), the Fondation Pernod Ricard as part of the l’Avancée programme (2021), Askip at the Beaux-Arts de Nantes (2021), the 72nd edition of Jeune Création (2022) at the Riksidrottmuseet in Stockholm (2022), and the 100% la Villette festival (2023). In 2024, he will take part in the 17th Lyon Biennale.
