dominique andré: evasion

Dominique André is in his studio-apartment, a converted maid's room on Avenue Junot in Paris. In front of his Revox tape recorder, which can record two tracks separately, is a motley collection of instruments: a children's organ, a cooking pot, a guitar, a frying pan and various other everyday objects to be rubbed, banged together and gently beaten. On either side of the recorder, an upright piano, a stack of film sound effects records and a vinyl turntable sit waiting . . . In a glorious career as a production designer, came collaborations, sometimes friendships, with Claude Sautet, Pierre Granier-Deferre, Samuel Fuller, Georges Lautner, Andrzej Zulawski, Gérard Oury, Philippe de Brocca or Francis Veber. Dominique is the one who finds solutions, the one who makes everything look easy, the one who adapts to the craziest requests, the most demanding constraints . . . Dominique André received a commission from France Musique, created a film soundtrack and published a single vinyl record (reissued here) that went unnoticed having been released as "library music". Despite all this, his daily passion remains confidential, personal, even intimate, out of modesty, but above all out of indulgence, like when, hiding by yourself at the back of the cupboard, you stick your finger into the jar of jam and know that sharing goes on elsewhere. On either side of the Revox potentiometer rotation curve, the tape no longer knowing which timeline to turn to, his family listens, admiring and incredulous at so many self-taught adventures, such amateur brilliance. And his other grandmother, a virtuoso pianist who accompanied the first black jazz orchestras in France, as well as his son, first violin in the Paris Orchestra, both marvel, uncomprehending. In doing so, they offer a possible definition of true experimental beauty, which is somewhat misunderstood, and timeless. Finally, a last door opens, and in the next room, for a long time now, the experiments continue, always amateur, always enlightened. And the forms, the colors, developed in parallel in Dominique André's painting, cannot be described in the present narrative, which has to be brief, because only then will its form be relevant. Printed under sleeve with gold pantone; includes download code.