Portraits Rouges

The audiovisual portrait is a recurring phenomenon in Thierry De Mey’s video work. The silent Portraits Rouges is closely related to Portraits Ralentis, two works dating from the same year. The later work goes back to Barbe-Bleue (55 Blue Beards). In Portraits Rouges, De Mey presents a quick succession of “portraits” of men, one after the other. But the images in this work are the same as the ones in Portraits Ralentis and Barbe-Bleue, though in this instance the artist uses strong red and blue filters—the frames tend to be dark—which results in a particularly alienating and detached effect.