Behind this machine anyone with a mind who cares can enter.
September 16–November 6, 2016
Following his participation in group exhibitions (1966-79 in 2013 and Dimensions variables in 2012), Jason Dodge will present his most significant solo exhibition in France to date.
Curator: Nathalie Ergino, assisted by Magalie Meunier
“There is an abundance of traces, everywhere, you can read them. All you need to begin is a question, you will notice that this halts time. What will happen to you? What do you not know about yourself? How will you make sense of what has happened to you?
“This sudden stop drops you into space. Details and similarities—sensuous and non-sensuous—spaces you have to navigate with your body and with everything that your whole body already knows: you notice the difference between top and bottom, left and right, centre and periphery.
“Now, use the same basic embodied scheme you would use to remember how to dance.
“Everything matters, everything is matter and therefore can be read. There are words, materials and forms. There are clouds, footsteps, fried eggs, paintings, shadows, shells, holes and walls.
“Reading begins with a question. Any question. The question you choose will reorient your perception (after all, perception is instantaneous foresight). You might notice the way a ‘C’ crawls and ‘LOUD’ swells and shadows disappear into an inflating light these are the signs that are the sensations you use to make sense.
“You may realise that your question has a hole from which its original preoccupation has emptied out. Perhaps you will even replace preoccupations with questions as a way to stop holding the world in place, already occupied by over-rehearsed perceptions. Perhaps a question is a mirror you can hold up to watch yourself pass by in the street without pretending that you can also watch yourself from the balcony.
“Reading is a way of knowing the world by inhabiting it. The invented geometries in which you are immersed are the navigational tools you need in order to move and touch and make sense. The way your question will be answered has infinite variations that you perceive laterally. All you will get is a tentative answer, a vague sense—now repeat the question.”
–Valentina Desideri
The title of the exhibition is the final passage of “Come on All You Ghosts” by Matthew Zapruder.
Publication:
On the occasion of the Jason Dodge exhibition, an artist’s book designed by Dodge is being published.
Special event:
November 6, 4pm: reading by the American poet Matthew Dickman
Save the date:
Space Brain Laboratory
October 7–November 6
Launch: Thursday, October 6 at 6:30pm
Study days: November 4 & 5
Since its creation in 2009, the space brain Laboratory, initiated by the artist Ann Veronica Janssens and Nathalie Ergino, Director of the Institut d’art contemporain, starting from the field of art experimentation, has questioned practical and theoretical research that allows the creation of links between space, time, body and brain.
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