STÉPHANE THIDET
DEHORS
Curator: Sophie Legrandjacques
Exhibition from March 28 to May 18 2008
IN CONVERSATION
Stéphane Thidet and Emilie Renard,
art critic and curator,
Sunday 18 May at 15:00, free
Stéphane Thidet’s universe, as enchanted as it is dark, offers up distorted visions of reality. His work suggests some other place, an inaccessible but perceptible fiction that confronts the viewer with a new ‘state of affairs’.
His work often relates to childhood, or to popular collective amusements such as funfairs, games (billiards, seesaws), campsites or zoos. It reveals a peculiar loss of innocence and uneasiness that, by the state of permanent tension it supposes, generates a restlessness and a rich internal commotion.
The universe of Stéphane Thidet is like that of Alice in Wonderland. Things and situations escape their customary worldly use in favour of a hybrid reality that sets up the interplay of overlapping readings.
“Dehors”, Stéphane Thidet’s solo exhibition at Le Grand Café designates a projected space, a fictional territory, but with the paradox of proposing an ‘outside’ to which entrance is refused.
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The exhibition includes 3 new works produced for the occasion as well as photographs and video.
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Stéphane Thidet (born in 1974, lives and works in Paris).
His work Le Refuge, shown at the last Printemps de Septembre in Toulouse, will have allowed many observers to discover this young artist. He has been very active on the new French scene, notably through his collaborations with the Générale, an alternative Parisian space with whom he organised the exhibition “Guet-apens” in June 2006.
LE GRAND CAFÉ, Centre d’art contemporain, Saint-Nazaire (F)
Place des Quatre z’horloges
44 600 Saint-Nazaire – France
T + 33 (0)2 44 73 44 00 – F + 33 (0)2 44 73 44 01
grand_cafe@mairie-saintnazaire.fr
Hours: Daily (except Monday) 2PM to 7PM, Sunday 3PM to 7PM