Il ne reste que des ombres — Tristan Chevillard

Il ne reste que des ombres

Collective exhibition

2021

Il ne reste que des ombres, 2021,
Resin, acrylic and oil on canvas,
views of the exhibition Pendant que d’autres écrasent des nuits encore moites, Théâtre des Expositions, Paris, FR

“Everything is possible once night has fallen. Darkness offers the moment when man becomes indistinguishable from animal. Shadows merge in a humidity so heated it turns to vapor. Rules dissolve. Laws are brushed aside with a flick of the hand. Night becomes both a moment and a place: a specific time that exists only in reverse to day, but also a site, an elsewhere, a heterotopic space where clandestinity, underground alliances and outlaws prevail. By virtue of its half-light, it defies order and surveillance. Outside, there may be nights unfolding elsewhere.
It is this second zone that the exhibition addresses, while others crush still-damp nights, those of illicit encounters, networks and forbidden trade. Anyone wandering through the night seems suspect as soon as they appear to be slipping past something. What does one seek there if not defiance? A nocturnal encounter can inevitably become a brutal meeting.
Through its lack of light, night closes its eyes: the law no longer holds authority and order has deserted the public sphere. It thus allows for an inversion of traditionally established power relations and the creation of a space for freedom and cunning. Those who flee, those who burn, those who sell, those who should not be there yet remain for lack of anywhere else, these clandestine figures, these deserters, these stateless people, those who resist and oppose control, normativity and domestication, this night belongs to them. Then things can begin.

Each work in the exhibition explores this phantasmatic imaginary linked to night and to the figure of the outlaw. All contain a certain form of violence, restrained or excessive, manifested here through weapons or desires for arson. In their own way, they evoke questions of subterranean existence, wandering, strategies of escape and the overturning of power relations usually taken for granted.”

Juliette Hage

Curated by Juliette Hage, curator-in-residence at Beaux-Arts de Paris. With works of Jade Boudet, Tristan Chevillard, Clédia Fourniau, Jean-Charles Hue, Victoire Inchauspé and Emma Passera.

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