In the summer of 2025, the Moody Center for the Arts will present a solo exhibition of the French artist Clément Cogitore (b. 1983, Colmar, France). A renowned artist, director, and photographer, Cogitore works at the intersection of cinema and visual art. Combining fiction and documentation, he uses storytelling to explore individual and collective memories, mythologies, and rituals, in order to highlight group dynamics and existential questions around conflict, oppression, and self-expression. By disrupting the flow of existing narrative streams, he blurs the line between reality and fiction. 

The exhibition will be comprised of two video installations presented in adjacent galleries, creating a dialogue between each other and the viewer. The work Les Indes galantes (2017) is a contemporary staging of the Baroque opera ballet by the French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau from 1735. Rameau was inspired by dances performed by tribal chiefs in Paris in 1725 and included their rhythms and movements in his composition. In Cogitore’s video, young dancers from Belgium, France, and Germany offer a new version of the operatic ballet through krumping, a dance style popularized in South Central Los Angeles in the early 2000s and made of freestyle body movements. 

In the second video, Morgestraich (2022), Cogitore pays tribute to the Carnival of Basel, an event held in the eponymous town in Switzerland since the Middle Ages. The Morgestraich marks the beginning of the carnival activities when the lights are turned off at exactly 4 am and groups of musicians parade through the streets with lanterns to the sound of pipes and drums. The piece features elaborately dressed carnival participants against a dark backdrop, walking continually toward an invisible crowd. 

Through these video works, Cogitore emphasizes the collective energy that emanates from the respective performances and underscores the force of group dynamics in which the individual becomes part of a bigger cause. 

On view

Les Indes Galantes (The Amorous Indies), 2017, Video, Color, 6 min.
Production: Opéra national de Paris -3° scène / Les Films Pélléas. 
Choreography: Brahim Rachiki, Igor Carouge, Bintou Dembele. 
Courtesy of the artist, Chantal Crousel Consulting, Paris (FR) and Reinhard Hauff Gallery, Stuttgart (DE)
 

Morgestraich, 2022, Video 4K, Color, 4min10. 
Courtesy of the artist, Clément Cogitore, Chantal Crousel Consulting
Coproduction Biennale de Lyon, Musée de la musique–Philharmonie de Paris 
With the support of Théâtre de la Filature, Mulhouse.
And the participation of: Clique Seibi, Clique Unbaggene

About the Artist

Clément Cogitore (b. 1983, Colmar, France) studied at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg and at Le Fresnoy, the French National Studio of Contemporary Art. Cogitore’s work has notably been exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; MADRE, Naples, Italy; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, United Kingdom; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany; MACRO, Rome, Italy; MoMA, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; MNBA, Québec; SeMA Bunker, Seoul, Korea; Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing, China; Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, Switzerland; and biennials such as the Lyon Biennial, France, and the Berlin Biennial, Germany. His cinematographic works have been featured and were awarded prizes at various international festivals (Cannes, Locarno, Telluride, Los Angeles, San Sebastian). In 2011, Cogitore received the Grand Prize of Salon de Montrouge for contemporary art, and the following year he became resident of the Villa Medici, French Academy in Rome. In 2016, he won the Sciences Po Prize for Contemporary Art and the 18th Fondation d’entreprise Ricard Prize. In 2018, Cogitore was awarded the Marcel Duchamp Prize for Contemporary Art. Since 2018, he has been teaching at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris. 

The exhibition is organized by Frauke V. Josenhans, Curator, and is made possible by the Moody Center for the Arts Founders Circle.