Journalist at RFI (ex-DW, BBC, CBC, F24...), writer (on art, music, culture...), I work in radio, podcasting, online, on films.
As a writer, I also contributed to the New Arab, Art UK, Byline Times, the i Paper...
Born in Paris, I was based in Prague, Miami, London, Nairobi (covering East Africa), Bangui, and in Bristol, UK. I also reported from Italy, Germany, Haiti, Tunisia, Liberia, Senegal, India, Mexico, Iraq, South Africa...
This blog is to share my work, news and cultural discoveries.
La Monnaie de Paris présente la première rétrospective en France de l'artiste indien Subodh Gupta (né en 1964 et vivant à New Delhi). Figure emblématique de l'art contemporain indien, les oeuvres de Subodh Gupta sont aujourd'hui présentes au sein de grandes collections privées et publiques. Elle s'articule autour de pièces historiques, rendant compte des origines de son travail, d'oeuvres monumentales et de ses plus récentes explorations autour du son.
Subodh Gupta conçoit des oeuvres à partir d’objets tirés de la vie quotidienne, usagés ou neufs, emblématiques de l'Inde. L'artiste joue de ces évocations claires et directes à son pays par le biais d'œuvres en trompe l'oeil. Les objets du quotidien sont transfigurés par leur moulage en bronze, laiton, cuivre ou nickel. Libérés de leurs fonctions, mis à l'arrêt, accumulés ou reproduits presque à l'identique dans un nouveau matériau, ils s'exposent comme œuvre au regard du visiteur. Les ustensiles de cuisine métalliques – notamment la traditionnelle boîte à repas ou dabba en hindi – sont souvent utilisés.
Assemblés, juxtaposés ; ils traitent autant de l'acte de cuisiner et de la nourriture du corps que de celle de l'âme comme différentes nourritures spirituelles. La monumentalité et le sentiment d'abondance qui se dégagent de certaines installations, comparativement à des sculptures de plus petites échelles, agissent comme des métaphores des tensions à l'œuvre dans son pays et plus largement dans le monde : entre la vie rurale et la vie urbaine des mégalopoles, entre l'industrie et l'artisanat, entre une vision politique et une autre plus métaphysique.
L'exposition investit les salons historiques du 11 Conti, le long de la Seine, se prolonge dans l’escalier d’honneur et se poursuit dans les cours intérieures de la Monnaie de Paris où des oeuvres monumentales et inédites seront visibles gratuitement par les promeneurs.
Cette exposition annonce des axes forts de la programmation de la Monnaie de Paris : exposer les grands sculpteurs des XXe et XXIe siècles, avec des œuvres conçues pour l'espace privé, aux côtés d’oeuvres de grandes échelles, commanditées pour l'espace public ; réfléchir sur le savoir-faire et le geste artistique sur un site dont l'usine est encore en activité.
Une exposition placée sous le commissariat de Camille Morineau, Directrice des Expositions et des Collections de la Monnaie de Paris et Mathilde de Croix, Commissaire d’exposition à la Monnaie de Paris.
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Monnaie de Paris Salons d'honneur, 1e étage aile est du palais et cours extérieures 11, quai de Conti, 75006 PARIS
DATES & HORAIRES
À découvrir à partir du 13 avril 2018 Du mardi au dimanche de 11h à 19h Nocturne le mercredi jusqu'à 21h
Song of the day.
'Harm of Will'...
Thinking of the hills of North Africa.
Thinking of these dreams where we meet. At the right time. In the right place.
Maybe in the past? Maybe in another timeline, another dimension...
Otherworldly sound, no...?
Love. Today. Yesterday. Everyday.
Björk - 'Harm of Will'
Lyrics
If there is a troubadour washing It is he If there is a man about town It is he If there is one to be sought It is he If there are nine she is They are bought for me
This way is as is she And he placed her Unclothed Long long long legged On top of the family tree
And if he has chosen the point While she is under him Then leave her coily placed Crouched sucking him For it is I with Her on knee
I leave her Without pith or feel And leave her be Leave it be For he controls what there'll be He makes his face known to none For if he is seen Then all will And all will know Know me
Over the past four years, as a freelance journalist, I have been travelling between Bangui (Central African Republic), Paris, Istanbul, Calais, Erbil (Iraqi Kurdistan), the South of France and Ventimiglia in Italy, London and… Bristol. I have mostly been covering post-conflict issues and the refugee crisis for different European radio stations and magazines. So I went to Bristol to write about a brighter, engaging and inspirational story. To explore the culture of England’s West Country, retrace the history of my favourite music, a fascinating journey through an artistic and social explosion.
I decided to write about the band Massive Attack when I read they were travelling to Lebanon, in July 2014. They were about to perform at the Byblos International Festival and to visit Palestinian youth they help, in a refugee camp in Burj El Barajneh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut. I contacted a friend who is a writer and music journalist to convince him I could write a book about them…
I had always loved their music and I know all of their albums by heart. Their engagement suddenly seemed very authentic to me; it completely stands out in the current music business. I started to think of a way to reach out to them, especially to 3D, also known as Robert Del Naja, the heart and soul behind Massive Attack’s writing process and social involvement. After months of preparation and once he agreed to meet me, I packed my bag for Bristol in February 2015.
I immediately liked the journey from London (where I had lived for two years) to the West country, the murals in Stokes Croft, the contrast between Saint Pauls and Clifton, the way art and music are present all around the city. I first stayed in Saint Pauls, walking everywhere, writing at the Watershed’s welcoming café and helloing Banksy’s famous ‘Mild Mild West’ and naked ‘Well Hung Lover’. After meeting with 3D, I contacted a snowballing list of Bristolians: some of 3D’s co-workers including sound-engineer and co-writer Neil Davidge, talented instrumentalists, rappers and vocalists like Mike Crawford, Sean Cook, Andy ‘Spaceland’ Jenks, Krissy Kriss, Mark Stewart and, six months later, Adrian Utley, Portishead’s guitarist. I also spent a lot of time in venues and art galleries, in Bristol – spending a day with Inkie or listening to Roni Size at the Hamilton House. In London too, in Paris – where I interviewed Tricky and met Nick Walker, then in Dublin and further, to see Massive Attack on stage. All these meetings and events helped me recreating the key moments that made possible The Wild Bunch then Massive Attack and the scene that followed.
The Wild Bunch, mid-1980s: Miles Johnson (aka DJ Milo),
Robert Del Naja (3D), Grant Marshall (aka Daddy G), Nellee Hooper, Willie Wee
My book therefore retells the story of a rare group of unconventional and politically aware musicians and artists. The story starts with Massive Attack’s first album, the remarkable and inimitable Blue Lines, then goes back to their first influences. The Beatles, reggae, punk, soul music, hip-hop, Jean-Michel Basquiat and the graffiti stars of the film Wild Style. These include their very own hometown’s history, from the slave trade to recent riots… Then the book evolves until Massive Attack’s homecoming show in September 2016 and their coming projects.
It digs into the making of their groundbreaking albums, especially Mezzanine, which turns 20 year-old this year, described by many critics as the best thing that ever came from Bristol… It follows Massive Attack’s evolution as extraordinary performers, whose shows rival with the best acts in the world, and 3D’s artistic transformations, collaborating with Banksy, United Visual Artists and Adam Curtis. This very rich and fascinating path took them around the world, from Japan to America, Mexico and Turkey, Lebanon and the Congo…
Writing about them and about Bristol’s music and art scene, led me to write this parallel history of British culture, with underground origin, always pushing boundary and keeping an aware and open gaze on our fast-changing world.
Fatal Assistance is a riveting and insightful documentary by award-winning filmmaker Raoul Peck (Oscar nominee for I Am Not Your Negro) which takes viewers on a two-year journey exploring the challenging, contradictory, and colossal rebuilding efforts in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake.
About the filmmaker:
Born in Haiti, Raoul Peck grew up in Congo, France, Germany and the United States. His complex body of work includes films The Man by the Shore (Competition Cannes 1993); Lumumba (Director’s Fortnight, Cannes 2000, also bought and aired by HBO). He directed and produced Sometimes in April for HBO (Berlinale 2005); Moloch Tropical (Toronto 2009, Berlin 2010); and Murder in Pacot (Toronto 2014, Berlin 2015).
His documentary on American author James Baldwin I Am Not Your Negro was nominated for the Best Documentary Academy Award in 2017. He served as jury member at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, is presently chairman of the National French film school La Femis and is the subject of numerous retrospectives worldwide.
In 2001, the Human Rights Watch Organization awarded him with the Irene Diamond Lifetime Achievement Award.
His latest feature The Young Karl Marx was released in France in September 2017, and will open in the United States in February 2018.
This is our last goodbye I hate to feel the love between us die But it's over Just hear this and then I'll go You gave me more to live for More than you'll ever know
This is our last embrace Must I dream and always see your face? Why can't we overcome this wall? Baby, maybe its just because you didn't know you at all
Kiss me, please kiss me But kiss me out of desire, babe, not consolation Oh, you know it makes me so angry 'Cause I know that in time, I'll only make you cry This is our last goodbye
Did you say, "No, this can't happen to me" Did you rush to the phone to call Was there a voice unkind in the back of your mind Saying maybe you didn't know him at all You didn't know him at all, oh oh, ya didn't know Ooo didn't know
Well, the bells out in the church tower chime Burning clues into this heart of mine Thinking so hard on her soft eyes And the memories, offer signs that it's over Over
This blog has been gaining so many readers recently!! From all over the world and especially in France apparently, but also Japan, Colombia, Poland, Kenya, Russia! America of course.
I neglect it, I know but these are busy time, but I love connecting with people, and it means a lot to me to know that these pages are read. It's about sharing and discussing and passing on what I love.
Thanks for coming!
In order to thank everyone, here is one of the most beautiful song in the world!!
In a couple of versions.
Massive Attack's 4th album, 100th Window was released 15 years ago on Feb. 10, 2003.
It was so ahead of its time. Thus, the music and themes are still so relevant today.
I totally immersed myself in it when it came out, not reading a single review. I literally lived with it the autumn when I was working in Prague, my first long-term experience abroad.
There, between the remains of the Cold War, between East and West, while American president George Bush and his then ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the world looked so dangerously changing into a monster again...
Very few artists captured the complexity of these times with so much talent.
3D and Neil Davidge, when I interviewed them, separately, both reckoned the album was completely influenced by the consequences of September 11th...
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Here's the first single, written with and performed by Sinéad O'Connor:
My interview with Matt Catchpole for Essentially Pop:
Here Melissa Chemam tells Matt Catchpole how she went about generating the band’s mystique and why she feels Bristol’s history as a slave port is so important to shaping its music.
Emerging from the Bristol Party scene of the late 1980s, Massive Attackhave been hailed as one of the most original and influential groups the UK has produced.
Now a new book seeks to lift the lid on the band, their home city and the network of artists and collaborators that broke through alongside them.
Massive Attack Out of the Comfort Zone is the product of three years’ work by French journalist Melissa Chemam.
Her book is drawn from a long series of interviews with Massive mainman Robert “3D” DelNaja and other key figures including Tricky, producer Neil Davidge, bassist Sean Cook, and members of the bands Portishead and Alpha.
Overtly political and fiercely uncompromising, Massive Attack is as much a multimedia arts collective as a conventional band.
Fearless in their support of causes like the plight of Palestinian refugees, inter-band rivalries mean members have often fought their biggest battles with each other.
Tricky left early to forge a solo career, while Andy “Mushroom” Vowles rancorously quit in 1999 after growing disenchanted with the dark direction in whichDel Naja was taking the group.
Here Chemam tells Matt Catchpole how she went about generating the band’s mystique and why she feels Bristol’s history as a slave port is so important to shaping its music.
Massive Attack’s classic Trio – Daddy G, Mushroom and 3D
Bristol became a leading port in the slave trade in the 18th century, with thousands of Africans forced to make the difficult and dangerous journey to the Caribbean to face a life of servitude on plantations.
Due to overcrowding and appalling conditions on board the ships, it’s thought that half of those trafficked failed to survive the voyage.
It’s this grim history that forms the backdrop to Chemam’s book and she argues it’s been central to shaping the culture of the city, along with the more recent arrival of the “Windrush” generation of immigrants in the 1950s.
“Bristol’s past, its link with the Americas, the slave trade and the influx of newcomers from the Caribbean, Italy, Ireland and beyond, in the 1950s, was defining,” Chemam asserts.
“We could say artists are connected to their birthplace and origins in many cases, it’s true for The Beatles, as well as Nirvana, or Jean-Michel Basquiat.
“But in the case of Massive Attack, they put Bristol on the cultural map in a way few had done before then. The very dynamic reggae and punk scenes of the 1970s obviously helped them in becoming so unique. And the birth of their first album, Blue Lines, was very much nourished by a dynamic intended to bring these influences into their very new and British hip-hop style.”
What makes Massive Attack so special, Chemam argues, is that they’re able to assimilate diverse influences and combine them to create something entirely fresh and original.
“Not every Bristolian of the 1980s became Massive Attack! It is about finding alchemy between different elements, talent, a self-taught ethos, a vision and a good instinct,” she explains.
Massive Attack’s principal trio, Del Naja, Vowles and Grant “Daddy G” Marshallmet and gained notoriety in the mid to late ’80s through the Bristol partying collective and sound system The Wild Bunch.
Tricky was also a member along with Nellee Hooper, who would go on to be a celebrated producer and re-mixer of artists, such as Madonna, Garbage andBjork.
The success of Blue Lines was like a statement of intent, a clarion call, focussing attention on the burgeoning music and arts scene in the city.
Suddenly a whole wave of musicians from the area were garnering national attention – many with close links to Massive Attack.
Portishead, Tricky, Martina Topley-Bird andGoldfrapp – to name but a few – all came through at about the same time, garnering considerable critical acclaim.
Much of the music was an entrancing, eerie, hypnotic blend of punk, reggae and hip hop and a new phrase was coined, with the city rapidly becoming known as the capital of ‘trip hop’.
“Bristol was big enough to attract great collaborators, producers and vocalists, but also small enough to allow encounters and good opportunities.It was far enough from and close enough to London, connected enough to New York City.” Chemam explains
“Hip-hop and street art all emerged together in a melting-pot in the early 1980s, and were taken to a new level by The Wild Bunch. From there, a dynamic was on the way.”
Following the departure of Vowles, and with Marshall taking a temporary break from studio work during the making of 100th Window, Del Naja became Massive Attack’s de facto leader.
It was pivotal to the success of Chemam’s book that he agreed to cooperate.
“Of course, to me, this project was only worth writing if Robert Del Naja was willing to participate. He’s the heart of the story, both an artist and visionary musician,” Chemam says.
“It was difficult to reach out to him but once he received my message, he said yes right away.”
With Del Naja on board, doors opened and many other key figures in the band’s inner circle began to emerge from the shadows.
“Most of the 30 artists and musicians I interviewed were a bit difficult to reach, but once I did, they were all very cooperative and helpful. Especially Mark Stewart of The Pop Group, Neil Davidge and (street artist) Inkie.”
A former BBC journalist, Chemam says it was Del Naja’s political activism that first made her want to tell the band’s story.
“I have always loved their music of course but what sparked the book project for me was their show in Lebanon in August 2014.
“They highlighted the situation of Palestinian refugees in the country in a very striking manner, going themselves to visit refugee camps with a charity they have been helping for years.
“As a reporter on culture but mainly international news, I was very moved by the authenticity of their involvement. I looked back at their history and realised how deeply relevant they had been in defining the past three decades, culturally.”
Chemam argues that Del Naja’s activism bleeds into the band’s music in both explicit and more ambiguous ways.
Songs like Eurochild, Future Proof, False Flags and Splitting The Atom are direct in their message, while others look at the challenges we face in the current geo-political landscape.
Hymn of The Big Wheel on Blue Lines is about looking at the world and wishing for change,” Chemam explains. “While the collaboration with James Massiah, for the EP Dear Friend, is about our post-colonial world and the tensions we’ll have to overcome whether we want to face them or not.”
Having now released five albums, along with numerous EPs, film scores and other collaborations, and with Marshall firmly back on board, Massive Attack remain as inventive and influential as ever.
Never far from controversy they remain a source of fascination for both music and mainstream media.
Massive Attack’s Daddy G (left) and 3D
A former graffiti stencil artist, Del Naja, has often found himself compared with another of Bristol’s famous sons, the mercurial Banksy.
Banksy has admitted his early work was inspired by Del Naja, but some have speculated that the relationship is actually much closer.
In a 2016 post, blogger Craig Williams suggested that the anonymous Banksy, may not have been a single individual, but a network of artists including Del Naja.
To support his theory, Williams matched the appearance of several Banksy works to Massive Attack live dates.
A year later, drum and bass artist Goldie, appeared to add further fuel to the fire, when he referred to Banksy as “Robert” in an interview with Scroobius Pip’s Distraction Pieces podcast.
Chemam, however, is roundly dismissive of these stories.
“These are old rumours, recently exhumed by people who hardly know Bristol,” she says. “British tabloids, The Daily Mail, The Sun, regularly use them to bring traffic to their websites. Banksy’s anonymity sells and Massive Attack won’t give these media any interviews.”
For the real connections between the band members and Bristol’s street art scene,” Chemam says you have to “dig into the story”.
Where better to start than with Out of the Comfort Zone?
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Massive Attack Out of the Comfort ZonebyMelissa Chemam is out in the Autumn through Tangent Books
