ART

25 ARTISTS SHARE THEIR « SURFACES SANS CIBLE » AT 22 VISCONTI

By Crash redaction

Translated in English from Say Who.

In a time where smartphones, Instagram and disposable clichés, what is the artist’s place in a world where images are everywhere? This is the question asked by the exhibition « Surfaces sans cible ». At 22 Visconti, an exhibition space located in a small street in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where Racine, Balzac and Delacroix used to live, the curator Anaïd Demir invited, on the initiative of Armelle Leturcq, founder of Blocnotes magazine and Crash magazine, twenty-five artists of all generations combined to present their mental images. Sensitive surfaces, free of contexts, frames, or imposed targets that give rise to the manifest « Surfaces without targets ». Even before entering the gallery, the visitor is faced with the portrait of Gianni Motti on the outside windows. These are his posters for the presidential election campaign of the United States in 1996. Inside, the exhibition is like a collage in three dimensions where the works meet and dialogue. Like Chris Burden’s « Dos Equis », a small frame that overlooks the sculptural photography of the young Alice Guittard. In front of Wang Du’s « Post-image 003 », a modeling of a compact crowd of photographers in front of a squatting lady’s backside, the young Araks Sahakyan delivers a series of performances using her bare back as the projection screen of a series of childhood photographs in Armenia. A work that resonates with her moving images on the walls of the gallery, not far from the « Panoramic Obsessions » by Frank Perrin. If technology and networks have democratized photographic practice beyond measure, Marie Maillard is the vector of this vision: exposed on the ground, her work « UNIT 1512 » can only be fully read when viewed through a smartphone or tablet . So when the urge comes to the visitor to take out its smartphone and capture or share these moments, the question arises: Is it not stealing the real vocation of the « surfaces without target ». It’s food for thought until November 19th.