David Claerbout — Interfuit — Yvon Lambert Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: October 24 → November 22, 2013

Interfuit is the 3rd solo show dedicated to David Claerbout and the first at the Paris gallery. For this exhibition, the Belgian artist presents 3 new videos and a series of preparatory drawings, storyboards of his films.

« Interfuit : il a été là (…) il a été absolument, irrécusablement présent, et déjà différé. »

R. Barthes, La chambre claire.

When someone speaks of digital manipulation this implies that there must have been an original that is “pure” and not manipulated. Photography has indeed been thought of in terms of “not manipulated” by the nature and the grace of the medium.

The mutual authentication between camera and the subject in front of the lens has brought forth an entire visual culture. Until recently that is. The impact of the disillusionment cannot yet be measured, but what seems to dawn is that we now pre-conceive a photograph before we look or take one. What we are left with is already the memory of photography as it was, and a bit of its fictional powers. But soon its factual power will be revealed as a construct in which we have yet to find a new belief.

The three works in the exhibition are very different from one another. The most recent work, Travel, is in fact one of my first ideas (1996). It can and should therefore be considered as an early work. Oil workers… attempts to channel a political narrative into an impressionist study — an attempt that would be impossible if it was not for duration to help it sink in, while Highway Wreck is an allegory of overlooking and oblivion.