Valentin Noujaïm’s La Défense trilogy (2022–2025) takes its name from La Défense, a monumental urban project inaugurated two centuries after the French Revolution as part of the Socialist party’s ‘Grands Projets’. Forming the first part of this trilogy, Pacific Club (2023) is a present-day, psychogeographical survey of a real, historical meeting place and a unique space for communal memory and celebration for diasporic communities in Paris, the Pacific Club Privé.
During the 1980s, the Pacific Club Privé nightclub was open every night, offering a haven for Arab, North African and other immigrants to convene together, listen and dance to soul, R&B and Algerian folk music (raï) right in the centre of La Défense neighbourhood. In the film, Azedine Benabdelmounene, a French-Algerian man, relates his personal experiences visiting the nightclub as a teenager around 1985, conjuring the forms of exclusion experienced in France during a period defined by widespread racism, the AIDS crisis and the heroin epidemic. Interspersed with stories of club-goers, their brush-ups against authority and the sense of camaraderie that kept them together, alongside contemporary footage of the neighbourhood, Noujaïm’s film is a meditation on the logics of erasure and disappearance of communal memory.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Valentin Noujaïm (b. 1991, Angers) is a French-Lebanese artist who lives and works between Paris and Athens. His work challenges dominant societal narratives, often in his native France, shedding light on the lives of individuals and communities historically and presently marginalised by systemic colonial discrimination. The cinematic worlds he creates reflect his commitment to exploring diverse formats and techniques, including 16mm film, Super 8, archival material, digital footage and special effects. Noujaïm presented his solo exhibition PANTHEON at Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2025). His work has been featured in screenings at MoMA, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museo Madre, Naples. Group exhibitions include Nomadic Nights, Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris (2025); the 1st Nîmes Triennale (2024); La Position de l'Amour, Magasin CNAC, Grenoble (2023).
EXHIBITED WORKS
Valentin Noujaïm (b. 1991)
Gargoyles, 2025
Concrete and steel
240 × 70 × 40 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Gianni Manhattan
Valentin Noujaïm (b. 1991)
Pacific Club, 2023
Single channel 16mm film, 16:9, colour, 16:29 min, stereo
Courtesy of the artist and Gianni Manhattan
Credits
Writer and director: Valentin Noujaïm
Production: Iliade et films - Manon Messiant
Cinematography : Pauline Domejean
Sound: Lucas Domejean
Editing: Dinah Ekchajzer
Music: Space Afrika
VFX: Nicolas Pirus
Sound editing: Ary Carpman
Mixing engineer: Maxime Roy
Featuring: Azedine Benabdelmounene / Taos Bertrand / Julien Mezence
