Flying Carpets

by Philippe-Alain Michaud (Editor)

Created in collaboration with Centre Pompidou in Paris and Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome, "Flying Carpet" exhibition was conceived by Philippe-Alain Michaud, curator at the former. Its catalogue is the seventh volume produced as part of Drago’s continuing collaboration with the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici during 2012. It is made up of 144 pages with over 70 images and includes introductions by Éric de Chassey, director of the French Academy in Rome and Oliver Michelon, Director of the Musée des Abattoirs of Toulouse, as well as a critical essay by the author. The art of carpets has a great influence on the art of the 20th Century : the fauvism and abstract art were inspired by Islamic rug art and foregrounded the visual effects produced by the flatness of carpets, the harmonious repetitions and variations of their patterns or their decorative characteristic. Such concepts are based on the assumption that the carpet represents a flat and abstract surface. However, through the Flying Carpet exhibition, Philippe-Alain Michaud (curator of the Film Department of the Centre Pompidou) proposed a different the carpet is regarded as a metaphor for movement. Through the repetitive patterns, various compositions and textures, the surface of carpet is animated and thus becomes interwoven images and cyclic representations of figures. Such ‘carpet effect(effet-tapis)’ is represented in certain experimental films and the Flying Carpet exhibition attempts to reveal the similarities between the art of film and the conception of carpets (such as flying carpets) through juxtapositions of experimental films and contemporary artworks from the collection of Centre Pompidou with carpets from the collections of Musée du Quai Branly, Musée des Tissus de Lyon, among others. In his essay “Movements of Surfaces/Mouvements de surfaces”, Michaud described how the fundamental characteristics of cinema are related to the projection and the running footages ; this is similar to the process of weaving carpets : when the process terminates, the carpet’s structure is dissolved in the knotting procedures〔note〕. The structuring and weaving principles of figures, the dialectic process in which images are revealed, constructed while also being dissolved – these are the fundamental similarities between carpets and the cinema. By analyzing the parallels between carpets of past centuries and contemporary experimental image-making, Flying Carpets exhibition reflects the basic elements of cinema and how the cinematic effect is incarnated in visual experiences beyond the cinematic realm.

144 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2012