Martin Le Chevallier

He started his career as a graphic designer, first working in collaboration with others (including Roman Cieslewicz or Pierre Bernard), and then solo. The 1995 general strikes in France prompted him to auto-produce his own political posters. But it was his meeting with the art critique Jean-Charles Massera, who invited him in 1997 to participate in an exhibition, that was to lead him to contemporary art. Wager 1.0, his contribution to the exhibition, is an interactive CD-ROM that plays on corporate jargon. Having discovered the potentials of interactivity, he went on to create other works exploring the possibilities of an interactive relationship to the spectator/user, notably in interactive videos.

In 2007, thinking that he’d taken his exploration of interactivity as far as he wanted, he turned to other forms and notably to contextual approaches that lend themselves better to political work: actions, processes, performances, site-specific installations, etc. The constant in all these works, regardless of the medium, is the critical eye he brings to bear on the contemporary world and the way in which he interferes with it. In his 2008 The Audit, he mocks his own status as a “former young promising artist” by having a consulting firm assess his chances of success and how best to achieve it. Straightaway, he did his best to disregard the conclusions and pursue his investigations wherever his concerns or fancies would take him, notably in film works or immersive pieces that have the potential to open up other possibilities.