DÉJÀ VU : Trevor Bourke and Paul Nadeau
Exhibition text by Philippe Bourdeau
EN
“Les tromperies dominantes de l'époque sont en passe de faire oublier que la vérité peut
se voir aussi dans les images”- Guy Debord, Panégyrique, 1997
The tone is set – you will be crossing identifiable landscapes that underline the inherent
structure of the visible realm. Is this an illusion, some false reality? Most of the landscapes that
are gathered here are clearly imaginary, instigating the images that shape our individual and
collective experience. Structuring our relationship with the digital, the representation and
construction of images contain emotional impact; associations with our memories.
We see elements arranged in a coherent composition. Forms of encounter, history and
architecture of the cities and landscapes that surround us are put at the forefront –real, specific
spaces: buildings and daily life. The addition of figures in the paintings, engages a narrative, a
deciphering of the images that shape our experience within an incessant flow and capture of
reality. As distant as the stories and forms that make up the works may seem, these viewpoints
are intended to represent actual cities and the extent of this state. Various techniques have been
used to simulate the invented compositions; inviting us to feel our way through these
times/places.
The condition of algorithmic images changes our attention to our world. changing our
ways of operating, communicating and feeling our emotions. These images influence an artificial
and sustained link to modes of consumption, aiming at actively maintaining our desires without,
however, satisfying them. Do our motivations come to parody themselves, influencing the very
constitution of our instincts? By doing so, do they come to condition our consumption of
images?
We have never been so close to algorithms, to this construction of a discourse based on
the online content consumption that influence us. If the reality of the digital and the future is to
confront climatic, physical and pandemic forces that are no longer up to us to realize, we are
coming to a pivotal period that is made of reflections on an underlying control of our reality.
As a way to face the melancholy emanating from the current political climate and our
creative conditions, this is an offer to visitors to find themselves, but also to be entertained. The
reappropriation of the exhibition context takes into account our situation and proposes a way for
the public to have a new experience of the exhibition space and connecting with artworks. This
is an invitation to to wander in a moving van and to follow a path like the situationist drifts, to be
transported into an intertwining of visual experiences that mirrors our lived experience.
We are in a period of lull, where we do not know where we are going to land. There's
nothing like finding yourself in a place you want to escape from –although with geolocation, you
don't really get lost anywhere. By moving away from the norms that society imposes on us, we
trace an unforeseen path by leaving the limits of location (literally and figuratively). These works
are at times a controlled escape and an emancipation, gathered within this context are the
practices of two companions that engage in new passages. By trying to escape the traceability
of our needs as well as the gloom of daily life, the characters depicted reveal wounds and
aspirations resulting from this drifting. The works as a whole open onto a road filled with traps;
building a desirable path.