Faites vos jeux
9th Gonesse Biennial of Contemporary Art
Pôle culturel de Coulange, 2014




Le Croult
Framed Lightjet print (from analog negative), 180 x 225 cm
Edition of 1+1 A.P.

Commissioned by the Gonesse Biennial




“By ‘modernity’, I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable”.



Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life

Inspired by Gustave Courbet’s paintings, in particular The Quarry, Deer Hunting in the Forests of the Grand Jura (1857), A Thicket of Deer at the Stream of Plaisir-Fountaine (1866), and Jo, the Beautiful Irish Girl (1865-1866), this photographic tableau was made along the small river that runs through the town of Gonesse (Val d’Oise, France), where some local secondary school girls, familiar with this spot, guided Benoît Grimbert. Reappropriating Robert Bresson's “cinematographic” protocol, according to which what the filmaker calls “models” must not overplay their role, they have together revisited Charles Baudelaire's statement in The Painter of Modern Life (Le Peintre de la vie moderne) that “each age has a deportment, a glance and a smile of its own”.



Gustave Courbet, La Curée, chasse au chevreuil dans les forêts du Grand Jura (1857), oil on canvas, 210.2 x 183.5 cm

Gustave Courbet, Jo, la belle irlandaise (1865-1866), oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm, Nationalmuseum (Stockolm) version
Gustave Courbet, Remise de chevreuils au ruisseau de Plaisir-Fontaine (1866), oil on canvas, 174 x 209 cm



Exhibitions


What stands between us. Akademie der Künste, Berlin (EMOP Berlin)

2025


Los Angeles revisited (in dialogue with Hannah Darabi) JAP, Entre deux portes, Bruxelles

2025


Horse Latitudes [as part of “Kerstin Flake / Benoît Grimbert” duo show], Fotohof, Salzburg

2024


Atrocity Exhibition, Centre d’art Ygrec / ENSAPC, Aubervilliers

2023


Neuköln “Heroes”, Hôtel la Louisiane / PhotoSaintGermain, Paris

2022


Deux ou trois choses, B.P.I., Centre Pompidou, Paris

2022


Regards du Grand Paris, Magasins Généraux, Pantin

2022


Nuclear Winter, Librairie Mazarine, Paris

2018


Rock’n Roll, Fondation Fernet-Branca, Saint-Louis

2018


Faites vos jeux, 9th Gonesse Biennial of Contemporary Art, Pôle culturel de Coulange

2014



Stains, Archives nationales, Paris

2012


A406, North Circualr Road, ENSA Paris-Malaquais, Paris

2008


Normandie, Paysages de la Reconstruction, CRCO, Cherbourg-Octeville

2006