When the visitor arrives at the Villa Arson, they always wonder: where to start? A sign catches their attention: BLUE SKY CATASTROPHE.
This exhibition is the collective work of three Ukrainian artists: Victor Korwic, Vyacheslav Sokolov, and Roman Yukhimchyuk. The three artists have chosen symbolism to evoke the current drama their country is experiencing.
The ladders climb towards the sky, towards light and freedom. The room is entirely black, with photos and videos mingling with the ladders. The only way out, the only escape: the ladder, or rather the ladders. Blue sky catastrophe: the catastrophe comes in fair weather!
These three artists confront us with the fate of their small country assaulted by the neighboring giant; they have only ladders, these small windows, sole glimmers of hope and freedom. Leaving the Ukrainian ladders, continuing our visit, we are welcomed by Emmanuelle Lainรฉ, who, as a rare privilege, invites us to discover her studio.
We feel her anger, but let’s continue. “I work backwards!” she tells us. The painter, the sculptor, the visual artist, the writer, or the musician starts from a theme, an idea, or a specific subject to create their works. This artist disrupts the genesis of the work.
She piles up, accumulates, and gathers various objects of all kinds, often eclectic; gradually, the theme asserts itself, writing a word is already a message. Emmanuelle Lainรฉ demonstrates the absurdity of our consumer society. Our Western civilization is racing madly towards the abyss. To exist, one must consume. The artist has arranged these various objects, and they lie before us. One might liken her work to a performance, an ephemeral work during the time of the exhibition.
Yes, she works backwards, it is indeed from the whole, from the entirety that we decipher the essence of her work. Message? Yes and no, it is up to each of us to bring our own response and become aware of the vain nature of this society doomed to pursue the headlong rush towards the abyss.
Eva Barto in a certain way echoes Emmanuelle Lainรฉ. She denounces the greed of capitalism and sometimes gives us a history lesson with the birth of the New York Stock Exchange on May 17, 1792, with the Buttonwood Agreement. The room is littered with bits of paper, stock exchange room with the pit! Rags, cigarette butts, a whole reconstructed scene.
The artist evokes the story of Pierre Joseph Arson (we are in a sense in his house). At the beginning of the 19th century, he ruined himself in the quest for an absolute, Balzac was inspired by this in *The Quest of the Absolute*. With Eva Barto, it all starts with a doorstop. Each element is important, removing even one, like that stray silver nugget against a wall, would break the balance. A map is provided, and every detail is explained.
A bit like a treasure hunt, it takes more than an hour to see everything and fully understand. Eva Barto demonstrates to us the mechanism of capitalism, this Leviathan consuming itself in an unstoppable race where humanity heads towards its destruction. Echo of Emmanuelle Lainรฉ? Certainly, the engine of capitalism is consumption.
These three exhibitions are a sort of: I Accuse! I accuse imperialism for the Ukrainians, I accuse the consumer society for Emmanuelle and Eva. Three exhibitions at Villa Arson visible until August 29, 2016.
Thierry Jan
