Blue is the chromatic, historical, and discursive filter through which a performance by African-American poet Kain unfolds. The famed precursor of hip-hop in the late ’60s delivers his "spoken word" as the Belgian percussionist Lander Gyselinck improvises to the flow of his utterances. Throughout the performance, various museum objects — funeral figurines, automaton, astrolabe, Mappa Mundi, and textiles —are juxtaposed with Kain’s own props. They invoke affective retrospections on exile and belonging, slave routes, and colonial trade.

"So far, all that has given color to existence still lacks a history" - Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Ultramarine, referring to a deep blue pigment but also to overseas regions, is a visual poem constructed from locally chosen historical objects. The project has been commissioned by the Printemps de septembre (Toulouse, France) and will be premiered in September 2018 in this city historically connected both to 'pastel' blue pigment and to the 'Gay Science' of the troubadours. As Blues Klair, it is touring Canada with two solo shows: Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (Concordia University), Montreal, 2018, and The Power Plant, Toronto, 2019.

Disrupting the Eurocentric written logic of historiography as well as that of museum classifications, Ultramarine sets a constellation of objects moving and enables them to expose their intertwined histories. The immersive experience of color, a living, the textured, spectral, and polymorphic substance is here rendered inseparable from its political component and from cinema as magical practice. The film is conceived as a kind of "narrated exhibition" featuring Kain The Poet – the Afro-American poet and performer, part of the Black Arts Movement (BAM) at the end of the sixties and creator of the mythic 1970 album Blue Guerilla. He colors history through spoken word, alluding to his own exile blues in Amsterdam. The music is improvised by drummer Lander Gyselinck.

Ultramarine is composed like a spectrum: it unfolds and intertwines fragments of meaning. This narrative form creates the possibility of connecting Kain's poetry to a larger frame of investigation: museum objects and artworks stored in various Toulouse museums and in collections of the Occitan region. These objects, connected with the double sense of 'ultramarine' (both a color and a colonial reference) are put in dialogue with stage props and reproductions of artworks that surround Kain in his Amsterdam exile since the 1980s.

Like the shifting layers of blue in the film's 35 mm cinematic image, as well as the surrounding soundscape, the exhibition display – a modular textile display designed in collaboration with textile designer Diane Steverlynck and scenographer Emilie Lecouturier – offers an immersive experience to the visitor.

CREDITS

Directed & produced by Vincent Meessen

Jesus Wept (The Journey of K)
Abridged version, written and performed by Kain The Poet

Music improvised by Lander Gyselinck

With guest appearances by:
Dirk DeJonghe, Serge Nicolo & Germain Berdie, Noémi Panguiangani, Malek Terkemani,
Valérie Alingrin, Gea Russell

Executive producer: Inneke Van Waeyenberghe
Director of photography: Vincent Pinckaers
Sound recording: Laszlo Umbreit, Rémi Gérard, Frédéric Alstadt
Image editing: Inneke Van Waeyenberghe
Sound editing: Laszlo Umbreit
Sound mixing: Rémi Gérard
Color grading: Miléna Trivier
Textile Installation: Diane Steverlynck in collaboration with Émilie Lecouturier
First camera assistant: Artur Castro Freire
Second camera assistant: Lucy Mallet-Jemmings
Subtitles: Erik Lambert
Credits: Speculoos
Typefaces: Titra, Belgika

Produced by Jubilee, in collaboration with:
Le Printemps de septembre, Toulouse
Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal
The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto

With the support from:
Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds (VAF)
Vlaamse Gemeenschap
Nouveau Musée National de Monaco

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