By Gilles Pastor
Copi was an illustrator, a stage director, a skinny pencil-like actor; he died of AIDS in 1987.
In 1983, as he writes “The Fridge”, the infamous “gay cancer” is diagnosed in France.
“The gay cancer epidemy”, “Gay cancer : the blood contagion” are the headlines of the French newspaper Libération.
Copi’s laugh, and especially in this play, is a desperate laugh.
L. (he or she), the schizophrenic hero of The Fridge, a character in between two ages and two genders, is looking for an exit.
A fridge was delivered at home, in the middle of the living-room and death shows its face.
L. displays energy and pleasure of playing. His theatre is solitary, masturbative. It leads him to orgasm. His theatre, like S&M practices, is staged between role playing and experimentation of pleasures .
All these bodies, all this flesh, all these sexes have lead my work into my own intimate outpouring.
In 1992 and 1996, when I shot these two videos that make up “Family Fridge”, I could not imagine that they would be useful in my work. My desire was to keep a memory of my grandfather. I improvised shooting him in his sleeping room, he was 88 and, perhaps he did not know what I would steal from him with my machine. I chose these pictures of my dead grandfather because they are strongly emotional to me.
Our fear of death, disease and ageing surface again.
L. invents a theatre as a conjuration. Desperate energy. Infernal but free rythm.
We have to live, since in the end, we have to die.
“Outpouring. Brilliant, touching, frail : Jean-Philippe Salério takes hold of all the characters, while Kiki, oriental dancer, smooths the rough edges. It is a real outpouring, which wards off the deepest fears, without being afraid of kitsch or simplicity.”
Marie-Christine Vernay, Libération
