Jeu de Paume in Paris, together with the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, has organized an exhibition with installations, short films and other material by the Belgian director and screenwriter Chantal Akerman (1950-2015), whose Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles was ranked the greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound magazine's 2022 "Greatest Films of All Time" critics poll.

I didn’t expect that I would have to queue for almost half an hour to enter the exhibition, otherwise I would not have gone on a Saturday afternoon at 4 pm without booking a ticket. But I had some time to spare and it was well worth the wait. I still think of Chantal Akerman as something of a cult figure, but of course in art circles she is well-known, which goes some way towards explaining why the exhibition was so well attended, apart from the fact that Saturday afternoon is always busy.

Centerpiece of the exhibition is the installation version of D’Est (1993) entitled "D’Est, au bord de la fiction" (1995). In 1992 Chantal Akerman was invited to create a multimedia installation about the reunification of Europe. Akerman accepted the invitation but wanted to make a film first. She made several journeys across Eastern Europe, Hungary, Poland, the former East Germany and Russia, shooting everything that moved her, faces, landscapes, people standing in line, cars driving by, factories, interiors, meals being prepared and so on. D’Est (From the east) (1993) soon became a cult film. It is a fascinating document of time. What’s interesting about the installation, which consists of twenty four screens placed in pairs of three across the room, is that you can sort of look at different screens at the same time, glance from one screen to another and walk around to another set of screens whereby the static long takes and tracking shots create a sense of travelling.

The exhibition includes various other installations and excerpts from films in installation form. "A Voice in the Desert" is the only work that was conceived as an installation. It is as topical now as when it was first exhibited. It was filmed in the desert of Arizona on the border with Mexico. Chantal Akerman installed a giant screen in the desert onto which From the Other Side (2002), a documentary by Akerman about the plight of illegal migrants crossing into the United States, was projected. This was filmed again for the installation.

"In the Mirror" (2007) features an excerpt from the film L’enfant aimé, ou Je joue à être une femme mariée (1971) and shows a young woman standing in front of a mirror as she comments on different parts of her body. She considers her breasts too small, her belly too round and one of her shoulders is hanging. I actually found the girl quite pretty. Apparently the scene hit a nerve, because I overheard two girls standing next to me saying the exact same thing. Perhaps, unconsciously they compared the actress with their own body.

Saute ma ville (1968), Chantal Akerman’s first short film, shows a woman frantically cleaning her small kitchen in the process creating an ever greater mess until, at the end, she explodes the kitchen and herself.

My first reaction was that this is all very Pina (Bausch). Except that these short films as well as Chantal Akerman’s breakthrough film Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles pre-date the dance theatre work for which Pina Bausch would become famous (Die sieben Todsünden premiered in 1976, Blaubart and Komm tanz mit mir in 1977). Could it be that Pina Bausch saw a screening by Chantal Akerman and suddenly realized that she could do that on stage?

I’m only speculating here, of course. It is quite common for artists to share the same interests if not obsessions. In any case, if you like the work of Pina Bausch then I highly recommend checking out the work of Chantal Akerman and vice versa.

If you’re planning on going to see the exhibition I recommend buying a ticket in advance to skip the queue and to take your time. I spent too much time at the Chantal Akerman show and didn’t have enough time left to properly view the Tina Barney exhibition "Family Ties" on the ground floor.

Chantal Akerman: Travelling is at Jeu de Paume in Paris until 19 January 2025.