Exo

Пикник на обочине (Piknik na obochine) @ Exo, May 12 – 19

9 May 2016
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The Пикник на обочине (Piknik na obochine) group show is on at Paris’ Exo, opening May 12 through May 19.

The exhibition —the title of which translates to ‘Roadside Picnic’ in English —includes work by the likes of Viktor Timofeev, Jason Benson, Martin Kohout, and Hannah Lees, each of whom have contributed a lot to the art world’s conversation on human self-comprehension and the related speculation around the existence of the ‘natural’ world during “The Time of The Anthropocene”, to quote philosopher Bruno Latour, who’s words are echoed in the press release.

The show borrows its title from 1970s Russian science fiction novel of the same name about an extraterrestrial occurrence called ‘The Visitation’, that happened for two days across six sites simultaneously, unbeknownst to the local people. The book compares the event to a picnic, while the exhibition’s press release also includes a paragraph from Annihilation (2014) by Jeff Vandermeer that describes a picture of the discovery of left-over rusted equipment and tents that were “little more than husks” in an aftermath of an expedition made by humans gone long before.

Other artists in Пикник на обочине (Piknik na obochine) are Eric Veit, Mia Goyette and frequent collaborators, Anne De Boer and Eloise Bonneviot, whose solo show of performances O Super (hu/wo-) man is currently on at London’s Green Ray, running May 16.

See the FB event for more details.**

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Fenêtre Project + Pakui Hardware @ Exo, Dec 10 – 18

10 December 2015
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Fenêtre Project and Pakui Hardware are presenting a collaborative exhibition, Dawning, at Paris’s Exo, opening December 10 and running to December 18.

Following a text devoted to the neglected bacteria that “made us”, the press release for the show describes the human body as a map of a metropolis, where these micro-organisms become “citified, recycling all”, including these corpses of “once-living giant evolutionary offspring”.

The Paris-based Fenêtre Project is an artist and curatorial duo featuring Dustin Cauchi and Francesca Mangion, who recently presented we wanted to be better and ended up being happy group exhibition with the likes of Tilman Hornig, Pierre Clément and Felicia Atkinson. Pakui Hardware, meanwhile, is a collaboration between Lithuanian artists Neringa Černiauskaitė and Ugnius Gelguda who’s Lost Heritage was on at Riga’s kim? Contemporary Art Centre from January to February this year.

See the Exo website for details.**

Pakui Hardware, Lost Heritage (2015) @ kim?. Exhibition view. Courtesy the gallery and the artists.
Pakui Hardware, Lost Heritage (2015) @ kim?. Exhibition view. Courtesy the gallery and the artists.
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Aline Bouvy, Sorry I slept with your dog (2015) exhibition photos

20 November 2015

For two weeks in July, exhibition space Exo in Paris hosted Belgian artist Aline Bouvy‘s solo show, Sorry I slept with your dog. Little information was given with the announcement of the show apart from an image which stood in as the Facebook event cover photo of one of Bouvy’s drawings of a worried face next to a sculpture cast of a foot. The face looks worried by how close the foot is and also potentially how contorted and flexible the person out of sight’s leg is. Bouvy’s drawing manages to make the viewer know this. It looks at you.

Aline Bouvy, 'Inclusive Practice' (2015) Install view. Courtesy Exo Exo.
Aline Bouvy, ‘Inclusive Practice’ (2015) Install view. Courtesy Exo, Paris.

The phrase ‘Sorry I slept with your dog’ is to imagine a moment of self disgust. The moments in the the show are laid out via a similar format or thought/word-process of someone reflecting upon themselves. Sculpture feet are pigeon-toed hiding under black painted hay bails. The hay bails could even have only been in the space in order to host sad, sorry feet. There is a mini man drawn laid back or maybe knocked back on one of the thinner walls -which makes a nice contrast between his horizontal body drawn with perspective and the actual, thin vertical wall (aren’t all walls vertical?)

Aline Bouvy, 'Not much in my pockets' (2015) Install view. Courtesy Exo, Paris.
Aline Bouvy, ‘Not much in my pockets’ (2015). Install view. Courtesy Exo, Paris.

Underneath the charcoal man on the wall is everything he had in his pocket, according to a story that is so present inside all of the elements in this show and in Bouvy’s wider practice -without being verbalised. Of course the plaster casts of some buttons, a lighter, half a domino and some other bits that are lying on the floor are not from this guy’s pockets because he is a drawing, but Bouvy doesn’t even make you ask this ridiculous question. You just look at it and feel melancholic and you understand something.

Aline Bouvy, 'Sorry I slept with your dog' (2015) Exhibition view. Courtesy Exo, Paris.
Aline Bouvy, Sorry I slept with your dog (2015). Exhibition view. Courtesy Exo, Paris.

Mounted on to the painted hay bails are some large printed images of a vaccum cleaner or water bottle with mountains of straws, or a squid, which, actually, upon describing in words seem to make sense in relation to the act and fact of suction. Bouvy’s work attaches itself on to you and maybe there is a really good reason for there being no words around the exhibition press. **

Exhibition photos, top right.

Aline Bouvy’s Sorry I slept with your dog was on at Paris’s Exo, running from July 9 to July 16, 2015.

Header image: Aline Bouvy, ‘Beg to bend over I + II’ (2015) Install view. Courtesy Exo, Paris.

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Bending Binding @ Galerie Alain Gutharc, Sep 5 – 27

4 September 2015

Exo Exo has invited Bending Binding to present a solo presentation titled Loop of Faith at Galerie Alain Gutharc‘s artist-run ‘Passerby’ window, opening September 5 and running until September 27.

The Paris-based curatorial program and an exhibition space Exo Exo has teamed up the Parisian gallery as part of the Galerie Alain Gutharc’s ongoing ‘Passerby’ window display (measuring in at only 98 x 290 x 34 cm), created to present scenes of artist-run project spaces in Paris.

For the display Bending Binding will present Loop of Faith, comprised of an installation of new works created specifically for the space. Previous displays included ones by Tonus, Palette Terre, and Moinsun, and after Loop of Faith, the window will bringing in a presentation by Shanaynay.

See the FB exhibition page for details. **

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