The sound of the ball bouncing, the crunching of sneakers on the ground… Closing your eyes gives you the strange feeling of being in a gymnasium. By opening them, the enormous colorful fresco “The Electricity Fairy” removes all confusion: we are in the Dufy room of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Blue jerseys of the French team on their backs, handball players Grace Zaadi, Pauletta Foppa and Tamara Horacek come alive around Mathieu Forget.
The world champions responded to the invitation of the protean artist and son of ex-tennis player Guy Forget for a rather special photo shoot. Dancer, director and specialist in levitating photography, “Forgetmat” has carte blanche from the museums of the City of Paris with his project “Making sport fly” with a view to the Paris 2024 Games, in which he invites athletes high level to pose with him among the works of art.
Mathieu Forget and the three players of the French team pose in front of the very colorful “Rhythm n°1” by Robert Delaunay at the Museum of Modern Art. LP/Frédéric Dugit
The goal of the game is to “represent the sport through its movement, then bring dance into it.” “When I get together with athletes, I always try to understand the body vocabulary of their discipline. I adapt very quickly to their world and then I try to bring them a little into mine,” summarizes Mathieu Forget. We therefore had to see him chain the pirouettes and cartwheel between the three handball players who confronted him with feints and half-turns in contact to pass the ball. All filmed by drone and photographed by the artist’s technical team.
“I’m thinking about how to highlight the museum and the athletes”
“It smells like handball,” rejoices Grace Zaadi, a leader at heart who, as on the field, takes advantage of the instructions given between two takes to support her teammates. Who, Mathieu Forget or Les Bleues coach Olivier Krumbholz, is the most complicated to follow? We will keep silent about the players’ response, what is said at the museum stays at the museum! But Mathieu Forget knows that athletes can have a little trouble.
“All athletes have incredible control over their bodies, so I always go their way. I will never force them. I just push them a little to make them experience something different and a little spectacular, confides Mathieu Forget. I think about how I can highlight the museum and the athletes, trying to find something aesthetic, graphic and which I hope provokes emotions. »
Between each shot, Mathieu Forget gives instructions to the very involved handball players, Pauletta Foppa, Grace Zaadi and Tamara Horacek (from left to right). LP/Frédéric Dugit
Change of scenery. For a new series of photos, the whole troupe goes down to the Moulin room. It is in front of the very colorful “Rhythm n° 1” by Robert Delaunay that Mathieu Forget invites the handball players “to dance very closely”. And there are the four protagonists busy brushing against each other, shoulder to shoulder, then one slides to the ground, the other moves with his arms in the air. Our Tricolors have a little difficulty understanding the idea and inevitably the time comes for the collision… in a burst of laughter.
And now Teddy Riner?
After capturing a few new extension jumps, Mathieu Forget wanted to pay homage to the roundness of the painting which serves as a backdrop with a back somersault, each execution of which will cause a few screams of fear from the museum staff who came to see the performance .
The general public will be able to observe at the Palais Galliera (and undoubtedly soon in the streets of Paris) the result of this photo shoot as well as those carried out with the fencer Enzo Lefort, the swimmer Florent Manaudou, the judokate Romane Dicko, the specialist in 110 m hurdles Sasha Zhoya and wheelchair tennis champion Pauline Déroulède.
Mathieu Forget would like to continue his project and finally succeed in photographing Teddy Riner. ” I would love. We failed and it wasn’t by a narrow margin. I would also like a French football player, Giroud, Mbappé, Griezmann whatever, a French tennis player…” lists the artist, who is also thinking, why not, of exporting his idea to the United States and working with athletes Americans. Because after contributing to the Paris 2024 cultural program comes… Los Angeles 2028.
