BERTILLE BAK, OLAF BREUNING, DANIEL GUSTAV CRAMER, FRANÇOIS CURLET*, DOUGLAS GORDON, SYLVIE MAURICE, ARNO PIROUD, GILLIAN WEARING
* With the participation of Michael Dans, Pierre Huyghe, Ann Veronica Janssens, John Knight, Marina Pinsky et Christophe Terlinden
* With the participation of Michael Dans, Pierre Huyghe, Ann Veronica Janssens, John Knight, Marina Pinsky et Christophe Terlinden
As part of the 15th edition of the "Curatorial Practices" UE led by the teams of IAC Villeurbanne and ENS de Lyon (Stéphanie Fragnon and David Gauthier).
Faced with dead ends, catastrophes, wars, and sufferings—however different they may be—“I will leave!” The declaration sketched by Stéphane Mallarmé in *Brise marine* (*Vers et Prose*, 1893), nearly two centuries ago, still brings us together today. We read his poem as a promise: the melancholic song of a desire to escape, and of its impossibility. Driven by this same impulse, we seek to extricate ourselves from this world despite its pervasive grip that holds us fast. An internal conflict also emerges, as we are torn between the selfishness of escape and its capacity both to liberate and to bring together.
For escape cannot be reduced to a simple definition. At first glance, it suggests evading responsibility, threat, or surrounding violence. This raises the question of what such an act presupposes: who is allowed to escape? It seems, indeed, that escape is not accessible to all, and remains an undeniable privilege. To flee is not to face. Yet far from being an act of cowardice, it can become a strategy for survival. And, transfigured through artistic gesture, escape acquires an aesthetic dimension which, paradoxically, calls for engagement—precisely where we might be tempted to interpret it as a withdrawal from reality.
Faced with dead ends, catastrophes, wars, and sufferings—however different they may be—“I will leave!” The declaration sketched by Stéphane Mallarmé in *Brise marine* (*Vers et Prose*, 1893), nearly two centuries ago, still brings us together today. We read his poem as a promise: the melancholic song of a desire to escape, and of its impossibility. Driven by this same impulse, we seek to extricate ourselves from this world despite its pervasive grip that holds us fast. An internal conflict also emerges, as we are torn between the selfishness of escape and its capacity both to liberate and to bring together.
For escape cannot be reduced to a simple definition. At first glance, it suggests evading responsibility, threat, or surrounding violence. This raises the question of what such an act presupposes: who is allowed to escape? It seems, indeed, that escape is not accessible to all, and remains an undeniable privilege. To flee is not to face. Yet far from being an act of cowardice, it can become a strategy for survival. And, transfigured through artistic gesture, escape acquires an aesthetic dimension which, paradoxically, calls for engagement—precisely where we might be tempted to interpret it as a withdrawal from reality.
