Yo MoMA is a video made on the model of Yo momma, the famous MTV show in which two people are invited to clash one another about their mothers. In parallel to that evocation of the «low culture», there are references to the History of Art in the dialogues. The protagonists are having very intellectual jokes. Their acting very natural provokes a strange comical effect. That way, two boys from New York ghettos can say: «yo momma‘s so fat, she sued Rubens for incitement to anorexia» or «yo momma’s so ugly, Baldessari painted two circles on her face». 

Those hyper anecdotal jokes make Culture relative as they put Art connoisseurs and MTV fans on the same level.

In a disturbing play of symmetry between four horizontally aligned screens, Vivace features children playing in a high green labyrinth. Gradually, one of them breaks away from the group to explore the labyrinth’s exit – a metaphor for leaving childhood behind? On the screen on the left, a pregnant woman lies in the center of the Amiens Cathedral labyrinth, waiting and playing with blue butterflies. The video is lively and colorful, the soundtrack joyful and playful – but a subtle gravity, specific to this age of life, permeates the work.

Fifty years after the appearance of Minimal Art in the United States, Ariane Loze follows in the footsteps of its creators, relying on the explanations that these artists gave about their art. By listening again to their statements made to Catherine Millet for the magazine Artpress, we realize how much this moment of creation has changed our relationship to the art object. The video is shot in an empty place and shows the form of perception induced by this art. Without presenting the works themselves, the video demonstrates the existence of a minimalist culture that has now percolated through the art world and laid the foundations of a new sensitivity to space and light.

This artwork is part of the collection of the CAB Foundation, the MAC’s Grand-Hornu, and the Contemporary Art Collection of the National Bank of Belgium.