By filming himself performing in a single static shot sequence, Moussa Sarr creates contemporary fables which, although they highlight the social and political question, are never without an abrasive irony. By spatialising poetry, he removes the need for words. Humour, violence and derision are the key features of his work. His oeuvre is also rich in sculptures and photographs in which the the problems liked to his immediate surroundings and relationships  are at the base of his preoccupations.

Here he presents a series of works which question society’s stereotypes with his characteristic fatalist humour. In his video ‘Le Cri’ (The Scream), a contemporary hommage to E. Munch after which the exhibition as a whole is named, Moussa Sarr reflects on the relationship between power and the people. The protagonist, who is eating something unpleasant, has his suffering alleviated by a figure humming the national anthen to him. In ‘Le Cheval et la Mouche’ (the Horse and the Fly), the artist draws inspiration from La Fontaine’s fable ‘Le Lion et le Moucheron’  (The Lion and the Midge) , in order to remind us of the eternal combat between the mighty and the small, and ‘qu’entre nos ennemis, les plus à craindre sont souvent les plus petits’ (that often it is the smallest of our enemies that we should fear the most). Finally, in ‘Le Loup et l’Agneau’ (The Wolf and the Sheep), an enormous video projection shows a close-up view of the artist’s mouth, which, in imitating that of a starving wolf, makes the spectator the sheep, causing them to strongly feel the truth behind La Fontaine’s quotation ‘La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure’ (might is right).

Remy Kertenian
Traduction :  Tom Lowe