PASSAGES
CENTRE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN
9 RUE JEANNE D'ARC — TROYES
To speak about Brice Dellsperger is, first and foremost, to speak about a love of cinema—one that the artist brought into the field of visual arts from an early stage. It is to speak of protocols that he has adhered to for the past thirty years, and of the challenge of constantly reinventing forms and references, a challenge he meets with ease. It is also about camp aesthetics, collage, and representation.
To speak of the Body Double series is to evoke the pleasure of recognition, the humor generated by the displacement of reenacted scenes, and production processes that always remain close to life, just outside the frame.
In Quitte ou Double, the videos play on a loop, and their duration remains relatively short (six to seven minutes at most). On this point, the artist states that he feels connected to the “aesthetic of the music video.” Let us enter the dance.
Body Double 31 appears twice in the exhibition. Here, Brice Dellsperger recreates the interrogation scene from Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct, featuring his friend Eva Svennung, wearing bold, highly visible makeup. The illusion of direct access to the screen test (the original audition footage is available online), staged at the entrance on a cathode-ray television monitor, points to the complexity of the artist’s practice. Dellsperger weaves contemporary-art narratives by imagining the exhibition space as though it were a film set.
The selected moment captures the mounting tension before Sharon Stone, in the original scene, delivers her iconic leg-crossing gesture. That gesture merely underscores how five police officers and investigators—male figures of authority—attempt to force a confession from her, only to find themselves unsettled by both her self-assurance and this seemingly simple movement. The reversal of power is palpable, and through this scene Dellsperger also highlights the intelligence of the dialogue and the subversive force of language.
This work was created with students from the Lyon School of Fine Arts in 2015. Around ten participants reenact the dialogue from a scene in Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, in which gay magazine covers suddenly come to life. The models begin a conversation about fame and money within a context that raises questions about social, sexual, and financial marginality.
The original film—an avant-garde work that has become a queer cult classic—also echoes Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V, blending fiction and science fiction. As the talking magazine covers evoke notions of madness and hallucination, the performers replay the dialogue in a continuous loop, each character costumed and made up in ways that further emphasize the instability of gender relations and questions of appropriation.
In this forest of psychedelic figures, a single actor, Jean Biche, embodies an entire fitness studio, set to a reworked version of Whitney Houston and Jermaine Jackson’s Shock Me (1985). Jean Biche becomes Jamie Lee Curtis, John Travolta, and the multitude of exuberant extras. He mimics the suggestive gestures of flirtation conveyed through the expressions and glances exchanged by the two main characters.
For Passages, the artist reworked the video, duplicating the film to transform it into a giant moving wallpaper—a kaleidoscope focused on fragments of bodies and faces. Adapted to the large wall of the art center, Body Double 36evokes the joy and vitality of bodies in motion within a hallucinatory loop that saturates the senses.
Body Double 38 differs slightly from the artist’s usual protocols. Two scenes, drawn from works by artists more closely associated with the visual arts than with cinema, form the basis of the piece, which loops on a vertical screen in the winter garden.
Eva Svennung performs the actress from Kenneth Anger’s experimental film Puce Moment (1949), who then becomes Wonder Woman as sampled by Dara Birnbaum in Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978–79).
Here, Brice Dellsperger creates a collage of two experimental films, bringing their subjects together through visual and thematic analogy in order to expose the sexist stereotypes embodied, on the one hand, by 1920s Hollywood and, on the other, by the television system of the 1970s.
For several years now, between film shoots, Brice Dellsperger has been producing gouache paintings on paper inspired by references drawn from his own filmography, works that complement the exhibition. The stars and their animals, along with reproductions of magazine covers, recall the aesthetics of the fanzine—printed spaces devoted to uncompromising creative freedom, where figures were often elevated to the status of icons. In this way, Dellsperger appropriates the figures who inspire and surround him, creating a kind of family for the public.
References are scattered throughout in a complex queer and punk cacophony, offering a labyrinth of visual mille-feuilles and delightful semantic collages from which one is unlikely to emerge unchanged.
— Maëla Bescond
Discover several video installations at Passages during the exhibition Quitte ou Double, from September 20 to December 13.
The other part of the project can be seen during the exhibition Futurs intérieurs, from July 5 to December 14, 2025, at the Contemporary Art Center La Synagogue de Delme. This partnership has been made possible through the French Ministry of Culture’s “Mieux Produire Mieux Diffuser” program.
A catalogue dedicated to the artist will be published at the end of 2025 by Mousse Publishing, with support from the Mieux Produire Mieux Diffuser program, MRAC Sérignan, the Fondation d’entreprise Ricard, the Fondation Agnès b., and Galerie Air de Paris.
Brice Dellsperger according to Evan Moffitt — Double Trouble; Pernod Ricard Foundation website.
Discover an interview with artist Brice Dellsperger at Passages.
A video by Thomas James can be viewed here.
Opening Reception with the Artist
Friday, September 19, 2025, from 6:00 p.m.
6:00 p.m. – Exhibition preview and official speeches
8:30 p.m. – Concert by Madmoizel in the garden
From 9:30 p.m. – Dance party featuring tracks selected by the artist
Food and refreshments available on site.
Journées Européennes du Patrimoine
European Heritage Days
Guided Tour of the Marot House and Its Garden
Saturday, September 20 and Sunday, September 21
3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m.
Free admission
Guided Tour of the Exhibition Quitte ou Double
Saturday, September 20 and Sunday, September 21
2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m.
Free admission.
Saturday Infra : let’s talk about the exhibition !
saturday October 4 at 2:00 p.m
Free upon registration here.
Wednesday Infra Halloween Special: Makeup Workshop
mercredi 28 octobre
6€ tarif plein, 4€ tarif enfant et adhérent.e
Wednesday, October 28
€6 – Full rate
€4 – Children and members rate
Bingo-drag ! With Estrella Gold & Lady Iris
Saturday November 15 at 4:00 p.m
registration here
Bingo cards available for purchase on site : 2€
Infra Night : Pinot Blanc tastings hosted by Chassenay d’Arce.
Thursday December 4 at 6:00 p.m
free admission upon registration here
Conférence et lancement du livre de Brice Dellsperger à la Médiathèque Jacques Chirac suivi du finissage de l’exposition à Passages
samedi 13 décembre à 16h00
entrée libre et gratuite
Lecture and Book Launch by Brice Dellsperger at the Médiathèque Jacques Chirac, Followed by the Exhibition Closing Event at Passages
Saturday, December 13 at 4:00 p.m.
Free admission.
