Melissa Orndorff

work by Mr. Parreno, a French post-Conceptualist

Philippe Parreno’s filmic installation June 8, 1968 re-creates the historical train ride when the assassinated body of Senator Robert Kennedy, lying in a coffin in one of the train cars, was transported from New York to Washington. On that day, mourners gathered along the tracks to pay their last respects. The vision Parreno offers to us, the film installation viewers, is one which is greatly mobile, modulated by varying and diversified rhythms. As spectators, our body and vision are sometimes deeply grounded in the earthly terrain and sometimes aerial, suspended and hovering in space. At one time, our eyes are inside the train, looking outside, from the windows, and a few seconds later our eyes seem to be on top of the train, then beneath it, rushing furiously on the tracks. At other moments, we are abruptly transported in the sky, at the height of a majestic tree, very slowly sliding down towards it’s roots. Going back in the air, we are now stroking the surface of a hill, until landing on the ground, and taking a pause, on a nearby sidewalk, of a nearby small town.