Before and After — Curated by Bill Cournoyer — Balice Hertling Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: September 10 → October 23, 2010

Before and After, curated by Bill Cournoyer, borrows it’s name from Andy Warhol’s 1961 painting series, which depicts a women’s profile before and after her nose has been surgically improved, representing as Arthur Danto stated, “the dream that haunts many people concerned with changing their looks in order to be, they think, more attractive. Replacing before with after is the path to beauty as they conceive it, and to happiness”.

The exhibition brings together works from a disparate group of artists who identify the before and after in their work.

Like the dream that Warhol brought to our attention, the works in Before and After look to surface ideas that contemplate the notion of transformation, reflect upon the concept of time and ultimately raise questions left unanswered. These questions reflect upon the work’s meaning, creating dichotomies which emphasize the differences between issues like illumination and obliteration, loss and re-creation, serendipity and intention, absence and presence, for example. Boundaries in the works are blurred, confused, deconstructed and redefined in relation to the viewer’s own memories and experience.