A Work Made From Bed is a video work shot in the reconstruction of Marcel Proust’s bedroom in the Musée Carnavalet in Paris. The bedroom is installed along a corridor and has only three walls, the fourth being a thin metal chain that ropes off the area along the walkway. The video shows what happens when an observing body is placed back in this reconstructed room, comically from in the bed itself, amidst the goings on of the museum. The actions observed—vacuuming, replacing of light fixtures, courtly dancing lessons—are layered intermittently with the piano pieces of Reynaldo Hahn. Hand-held shots from bed are bookended by static shots of Proust’s possessions: first, in the darkness before the museum opens, and at the end, under the bright museum lights.
A Work Made From Bed is a work of literal and literary observation in which, under the historical weight of the room and the lightness of its fourth wall, memory and presence become choreographed, tenderly and absurdly.
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