Erik Nussbicker’s performance at Palais the Tokyo

I just come back from an amazing performance given tonight by my friend Erik Nussbicker who was invited to Palais the Tokyo, a famous center for contemporary art in Paris- I would say a laboratory for cutting edge art- for an odd recital …on a deer’s bones. It’s actually a sound piece also called “Le Cerf de Saint Eustache “( Saint Eustachius’ deer), in reference to a wonderful engraving by Durer where we can see the saint kneeling down in front of a deer on whose head a cross is shining between his antlers.In Erik Nussbicker installation we can observe first a carpet made of horse hair , on which is displayed an entire deer’s skeleton. All the bones, so thin and white, had been worked slighty to be “played” by th artist himself : using echoes, vibrations, percussions, from the smallest- like teeth vibrating on the jaw- to the most imposing : the head transformed into a lyre. We feel like being linked back with the forces of nature, paying a tribute to a lord-animal of the forest, making bridges between life/death/ and space even,  through vibes and sound. A great total experience for him as for the audience.