The Moody Center for the Arts presents "Collective Memories," an exhibition by renowned artist, director, and photographer Clément Cogitore.

Working at the intersection of cinema and visual art, Cogitore disrupts the flow of existing narrative streams, blurring the line between reality and fiction. The Moody's presentation will mark the first time the artist has been shown in Houston.

The exhibition is comprised of two video installations in adjacent galleries. The work "Les Indes galantes" (2017) is a contemporary staging of the Baroque opera ballet by the French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau from 1735. Rameau, inspired by dances performed in Paris in 1725 by Indigenous tribal chiefs from America, included their rhythms and movements in his composition. In Cogitore’s video, young dancers from Belgium, France, and Germany offer a new version of the operatic ballet through krumping, a dance style popularized in South Central Los Angeles in the early 2000s and made of freestyle body movements.

In the second video, "Morgestraich" (2022), Cogitore pays tribute to the Carnival of Basel, an event held in the eponymous town in Switzerland since the Middle Ages. The Morgestraich marks the beginning of the carnival activities when the lights are turned off at exactly 4 am and groups of musicians parade through the streets with lanterns to the sound of pipes and drums. The piece features elaborately dressed carnival participants against a dark backdrop, walking continually toward an invisible crowd.

Following the opening reception, the exhibit will be on display through August 16.