“I started doing portraits because I love to stare, to watch someone without interruption. It's about seeing another person, peacefully, calmly, in their own world, and about having immediate feedback... I consider myself to be a traditional portraitist, using video. I don't make these portraits in order to entertain television viewers, but so that we can live with them as with a painting or photograph.” Living, lingering, wandering among this gallery of family portraits, thirty-second segments, in a format designed for television broadcast in advertising spaces that boast a product, the work of an artist and the pertinence of a gesture. Dancers, writers, philosophers, poets, painters, photographers, and musicians express or disguise their truth as well as their brand image, for television, while the director also expresses her vision. Joan Logue invented a new form for each one: new framing or editing, or special effects that express creative energy and elevate it to the highest rank. In just a few seconds, her lively, incisive eye aims to capture the essence of the individual and their singularity. In these three series of portraits shot from 1980 to 1986 in New York and Paris, we can recognise a few famous faces here and there, including: John Cage, Steve Reich, Meredith Monk, Philip Glass et Nam June Paik, ou encore Robert Doisneau, Jacques Monory, Philippe Sollers, David Hockney, Pierre Boulez, Julia Kristeva and Jacques Derrida.

Stéphanie Moisdon
(Extrait du catalogue Vidéo et après. La collection vidéo du Musée national d'art moderne. Editions Carré et Editions du Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. 1992.)

Translated by Anna Knight