Marcelline Delbecq

Marcelline Delbecq’s art of the “invisible cinema” is, by its very nature, a practice of filling in the gaps. In order to realize what she describes as the “cinematic potential of writing,” Delbecq withholds images, objectifies words, and creates settings that lack both prop and actor. By distilling cinema to its verbal or written elements, and then translating the result into a wholly different medium, the artist implores the viewer to unleash the imagination in order to mentally reconstitute the missing elements. In many pieces Delbecq uses her voice to transmit personal histories, fictitious elaborations, and spatial descriptions that meld into a single narrative. Initially focused on photography, she has expanded and diversified, devoting her artistic energies to a variety of mediums including sound pieces, installations, works on paper, and performative readings. Delbecq’s work has been exhibited internationally, at venues including New York’s Art in General, Swiss Institute, the Kadist Art Foundation in Paris, the Centre Pompidou, Sweden’s Malmö Konstmuseum, and the Palais de Tokyo, among others.