IN TRIBUTE TO MADAME DE POMPADOUR AND THE COURT OF LOUIS XV (1985)

 

Second version, filmed over three weeks at Kettles Yard, Cambridge, England.

 

• Super-8 b/w positive
• Camera P.E.L.
• Performance of JS. Bach’s Serenades by Nick Wilson.
• Original sound lost

 

Under restoration

 

 

ABOUT IN TRIBUTE TO MADAME DE POMPADOUR AND THE COURT OF LOUIS XV

 

In Tribute to Madame de Pompadour and the Court of Louis XV is an elaborate machine evoking a celebration of the Enlightenment in eighteenth-century France, focusing on the cultural, economic, and political systems at Versailles, particularly Madame de Pompadour’s relationship to Louis XV and his various courtiers. When operative, live bees and snails run the machine’s main conical structure. The bees produce the cultural wealth (honey) of the society and the snails (courtiers) consume and distribute it for various physical and symbolic purposes. The machine is an intricate model of a society.