Patriotic (2005)

Patriotic (2005 | 4'05") is a short musical video work by Benny Nemer, made in collaboration with Pascal Lièvre. Through song, performance, and the visual language of pop culture, the work plays with the conventions through which national identity, belonging, and masculinity are performed. Rather than treating patriotism as a fixed political conviction, the artists approach it as something rehearsed: an emotional and aesthetic performance produced through familiar gestures, voices, and images.

The work belongs to a period in Nemer’s practice characterized by the critical mimicry of popular culture. By appropriating the seductive forms of music video and pop performance, Patriotic unsettles the distinction between sincere identification and parody, asking how collective identities are produced through repetition and spectacle—and what happens when those codes are performed through a queer body.

Benny Nemer is a Montreal-born artist, diarist, and researcher based in Paris. Working across video, sound, performance, writing, and participatory practices, his work explores the voice, emotion, queer histories, and the ways identities and relationships are mediated through cultural forms.

FILM BLOCK 3
Continuous screening - see www.gogbot.nl/timetable for the schedule