"I don`t know if I`m unhappy because I`m not free, or if I`m not free because I`m unhappy" --Jean Seberg in À bout de souffle (Breathless) 1960

Fans of Godard will immediately recognize the heroine of Dennis Adams' exhibition Double Feature, now showing at Amsterdam's Lumen Travo gallery.  The American actress Jean Seberg's performance in Godard's À bout de souffle (Breathless) is superimposed against another iconic film from the 60's, the Battle of Algiers.  In a series of altered film stills, Adams has lifted Jean Seberg from the Champs-Élysées selling the New York Herald Tribune and deposited her amidst the guerilla actions of the Algerian Revolution.

Two video works feature Seberg again in her leading role in Breathless, appropriating two iconic gestures from the film--Seberg flirtatiously lifting her skirt over her balcony, and impassively tracing her lip after seeing her lover shot down--and setting them in a political, racially tense context.  In Curtain Call, Adams has added an inscription to the balcony, "ILS VOIENT NOS FEMMES ON VOIT PAS LES LEURS," and Black Belmondo the act of tracing her lip is digitally turned into the application of blackface makeup.

At first, the connection is not apparent but as the exhibition evolves in the last room of the exhibition, the tragedy of Seberg's real life and political affiliations becomes the central subject.  Her connection to the Black Panther Party and leftist politics made her a target for the FBI, and their interdepartmental correspondences, now declassified, are presented in the most fascinating and horrifying series.  These documents are reproduced via silkscreen laid on mirrors, thick censored marks black out still-sensitive names, but the story is all there.  You must inspect them carefully, methodically, as the mirrored image of the text hinders any quick perusal.

J. Edgar Hoover decided that Jean Seberg's support of the Black Panthers made her a threat to the American way of life, and issued an order to have her career destroyed by leaking a story to the gossip columns that she was pregnant by one of the leaders of the Panthers.  While reading these sickening documents one phrase that sticks in my mind was how they described Seberg's "crime", her alleged relationship with a black activist, as "perverted sex", instantly highlighting how institutionalized racist attitudes affected the disturbing actions of the US's governing bodies.

The rest of the exhibition is not nearly as intriguing as these mirrors.  The not-so-subtle suggestions of Seberg's involvement in the race struggle via the doctoring of popular films and her role in Breathless is not as convincing or as shocking as these reproduction of actual artifacts, these telling documents of hatred and conspiracy.  In the other works Seberg is still merely a beautiful young actress to us, and the manipulation of media is so obvious as to almost discount their legitimacy and power.  The mirrors on the other hand, though reproductions, are meticulous to the point of reproducing the build up of over-copied xerox ink from the documents.  Their realness is what's striking and ultimately so moving.

This rift in concept and approach brings up a fascinating dialogue then about public figures and private lives, transparency and secrecy, authenticity, appropriation and reproduction.   Both sides of the exhibition are necessary--the reinforcement of her public figurehood, of her landmark performance as the naive young American in Paris must be compared to the dark, real-life conspiracy.  The documents would not have as much weight or power did we not have this pure, romantic image of Jean Seberg.  It's this image that Dennis Adams recontextualizes; she is a veritable "vessel for reimaging history," and one then discovers that the exhibition is not really about Jean Seberg, but about history as channeled through her public image. 

--Natalie Hegert

(*Images from top to bottom:  Dennis Adams, Double Feature, 2008, courtesy of the Artist and Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam.  Dennis Adams, Double Feature, 2008, courtesy of the Artist and Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam.  Dennis Adams, Black Face, 2008, silkscreen on mirror, courtesy of the Artist and Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam.  Dennis Adams, Double Feature, 2008, courtesy of the Artist and Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam.)