ABOUT:

This performance, involving the construction and attempted ascent of make-shift structures will take it’s departure from the myth of Sisyphus,
«... The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain. If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He concludes that all is well. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.» wrote Camus, that is my idea of survival, of persistence.


BIO

After studying Performance and Sound Poetry at the Beaux-Arts in Toulouse, Nicolas Puyjalon moved to Berlin where he collaborated with the gallery L’Atelier-ksr, Leila Peacock, Zabo Chabiland, Nicolas Malclès-Sanuy, Estelle Vernay or Judith Lavagna. His performances have been presented in institutions such as Palais de Tokyo (2017), Espace Louis Vuitton (2015), Le Musée de la Chasse et de La Nature (2013), as well as in many festivals in France and internationally. He was recently in residency in France, and in Canada.