curatorial

 

30.04.18 - 7.05.18 — Putsch Galerie, Brussels

 

With works by Gen Ueda, Juliette Le Monnyer, Maud Gourdon, Sophie Nys.

 

 

The Japanese Kanji 空 could be translated as either Sora ("Sky") or Kara ("Void"), depending on the context. Japanese Kanjis’ polysemic properties lead to a double translation. A single ideogram may refer to two distinct words, referring themselves to several different concepts. This multiple translation phenomenon, although inherent to any translation process is made more complex with Japanese homographs.

 

« But when everything disappeared in the night, ‘everything disappeared’ appears »

— Maurice Blanchot, The Space Of Literature

 

 

Gathering works from four artists, the exhibition opens a poetic space in between these homographs. Occurring from language’s narrow shades of meaning, the poetic space recovers that of conceptual translation, drawing on the "Both-And" strategy instead of the traditional "Either-Or".

The exhibition is composed of two rooms, diurnal and nocturnal. The first is bathed in light, a room for the day, action and commitment. Maud Gourdon’s frieze settles a metaphorical environment, a perspective, and an endeavor. Neutralizing Blanchot’s night, day recovers a feminist aspect, with Penelope’s character infiltrating trivial phonetics. Sophie Nys’ 102 Craters On Venus draws on a direct proposition, intervening on authority figures of modern history. The second room, nocturnal, lets us see a sky tinged with unusual colors, supporting multiple windows on poetic imageries.

 

The binary diurnal-nocturnal spatial arrangement then collapses, shades through these projects whose relations and echoes sidestep a rigid rule. 空 experiments a relational system between artworks, a space between language and image.