(…) And yet, the angel has folded its wings into the jar, the jar has sunk into the clay, the clay has embedded itself into the table, the table encloses within its legs the remnants of a formwork. Without a stir of dust: no fleeting rise, no soft settling, not even a deposit—the passage of time has paused. Bound to one another, the objects remain still. The movement once suggested by the carts, the swarming of wires, the orientation of elements, has given way to a more stable, massive, opaque, and solemn arrangement of furnishings.
And yet, the clay has now left the wall for the table; in return, the wall receives the wood; the glass moves to the floor; the wax, still feeding the edges, leaves the needle to smooth the thread. Movement shifts… Displacement becomes process. The vital principle of the artwork—absent from its visibility—acts at the core of the system. The object itself, in other places seemingly completed, transforms into material for a new arrangement. From withdrawals to postponements, from relationships to divergences, from balances to tensions, a new, fragile topography emerges—the essence of another place.
In this circulation of signs, exhibiting, in turn, can be a freezing of time. A momentary halt or the duration of a silence—understood, in its musical sense, as a pause. For the artist, questions multiply: What is the purpose of finishing ? Why interrupt what propels thought ? Is the act of showing something completed even conceivable ? Where do the limits lie between leading a piece to fulfillment and concluding a work, finishing, placing a final point ?
To reject, then, the singular artwork and instead arrange it loosely within the welcoming space—opposed to an in situ approach. To form a collection where the only requirement of the deposited object is its need for another. To ceaselessly articulate, far from any artificial construct. To bring into being together. And to leave the work open—in its fluidity, its echoes, its recalls, and its pursuit. From the finite to infinity.
To embrace time, to accept its duration. To devote years to selecting a single thread, to waiting for the oil to dry, to carefully applying wax with a brush, to allowing a title to emerge, like a beacon, and to patiently sand. Silence. To begin again. Silence. To persist. “It is through time that a place is built.” A particular place where light barely illuminates, if at all—a place on the brink, a chamber of enigmas.
And suddenly, in a scene from Tarkovsky, the image of the dead tree: watering the dead tree… It matters far less that the tree may one day revive. Isn’t the essential act simply to water ?
Marie-Luce Thomas – 2002
Exposition Encombrant – St Pierre des Corps – 2002
