OLIVIER MILLAGOU
Five summer stories
07 July - 16 September 2006
Tuesday to Saturday 2 - 7 pm
Opening Thursday 06 July 6.30 - 9 pm
The work of the French artist Olivier Millagou (°Bandol, 1974) is strongly based on popular culture and more precisely on surf culture. His work is referring to icons of television series, pop and rock music, advertisement and sports. Millagou is especially known for his technique of the drawing-pin, by which he is using pins to form a mural depicting of patterns such as glittering palm trees, stars or logo’s of rock bands. The names of music groups or television shows Millagou is referring to are not arbitrary but are emblematic for an entire generation. By functioning as symbols that summarise the Zeitgeist, they reveal a lot about our secret desires and dreams.
The stereotypes of the laid-back beach culture, as propagated by pop bands like The Beach Boys or television series like Magnum or more recently Baywatch, especially occupy Millagou’s interest. Sets of clichés like palm trees, pink flamingo’s, Hawaiian garlands, and pin ups are functioning as iconic references to paradise. These prototypical elements are simulacra that contribute to the creation of a paradisiacal phantasmagoria. The proliferation and succession of simulacra leads to a form of hyperreality, a fake world that is a copy of the real world, just like a theme park is. The specific combination of conceptual art and amusement parks, underground and Hollywood, pop art and surf culture that is so characteristic of the oeuvre of Millagou can also be found in the work of L.A. based artists such as John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha.
The title of the exhibition refers to a cult movie that was heralded as ‘the finest surf movie ever made’. Five Summer Stories is a cultural icon, a time capsule from a watershed era when the world was at a critical crossroads and its
reflection was clear in the emerging sport/art of surfing. Against a backdrop of the Vietnam War and the Nixon
years, it was the culmination of the joint surf-film careers of Jim Freeman and Greg MacGillivray. Code named ‘The
Last Surfing Movie’ during production, the movie portrays a young, outlaw sport at a strategic point in its creative evolution- and at an historic crux in time. ‘For the surfing aficionado, Five Summer Stories is an incredible barrage of audio-visual stimulus.’ (Surfer Magazine)
In his work, Millagou is referring to existing elements of fiction to tell us something about reality. By using archetypical attributes and settings that are constantly re-created and repeated by television, the artist illustrates the extent to which these clichés are subconsciously taken for real. The deliberate artificial nature of his art, leads to a better understanding of the way in which these collective myths have been constructed. Millagou is using this imagery of the surf culture to create a dark and mournful atmosphere. The gallery space has been painted in black, contrasting strongly to the light and superficial connotations we generally associate with surfing. Even the palm trees, which are normally contributing to the relaxed atmosphere in his work, are painted in black. The installation can be interpreted as a commemoration of a paradise lost, though the majority of people live in the make-belief that this paradise on earth still exists. Millagou is illustrating that the entire iconography of the surf culture and its celebration of hedonism, is in reality based on the loss of innocence of these exotic islands. By painting images from the skate- and surf culture on pebbles, the artist is uniting both worlds in his work.
Resorts like Hawaii have lost their innocence when the indigenous population was attacked by colonialists and got in contact with diseases, alcoholism and religion. The way in which modern man cherishes the desire for an unspoilt paradise can be interpreted as an unconscious confession of guilt for having caused its destruction. The initial ideals of the colonialists got quickly perverted by economic motives and greed. The idea of the unspoiled island still remains as a myth that is sold by advertisement and travel agents to lure tourists who are on a quest for the authentic. That it is exactly this form of mass tourism that causes the destruction of authentic, local cultures is another paradox that is brought up in the work of Millagou.
The stars that cover the black walls of the gallery and the invitation cards are referring to the night, the only moment that the island is no longer the object of the tourists’ gazes but belongs entirely to the local population. As a souvenir and a prolongation of the exhibition, the artist has selected a disk with indigenous ukulele music that is normally played at burials. The local inhabitants keep on playing the ukulele to make the tourists believe that the paradise still exists, though they know it has been lost already a long time ago.
Another solo show of Olivier Millagou, Surf Now Apocalypse Later, takes place on the French Riviera at the Galerie de la Tête d’Obsidienne, Fort Napoléon, in La Seyne-sur-Mer until the 29th of July.
This summer, the artist is also participating in the group exhibition Giardino - Places For Small Stories in palazzo delle Arti di Napoli, Italy.
Sam Steverlynck |
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