Laurent Mareschal — Bureau d’échange — Marie Cini Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: May 5 → June 16, 2012

Artist Laurent Mareschal often invites the public to participate, even to transform his work. Apparently in this project one can exchange just about anything, even beyond money for artwork. Could this be some kind of prank or swindling scheme? Or, more probable it’s some kind of language game, a play on words, a shifting between words and their meaning, a secret code to decipher. Using office stamps “facture” (invoice) becomes “fracture” (fracture), “avoir” (credit) becomes “à voir” (to see), “important” (important) becomes “impotent” (impotent), etc. This could be perceived as some kind of intellectual exercise but unlike satirical caricatures from the newspaper and their use of current events to fuel our senses; rather in Mareschal’s works, his choice of ephemeral materials trigger our senses: the fragility of raw materials whereby one must refrain from sneezing or breathing before lines of brown sugar; the visceral experience of running ones fingers alternatively along the smooth and rough surface of a mirror engraved in Braille; and tiling composed of fragrant spices.

In this exhibition, Mareschal explores a universal theme perhaps best described by Ionesco: “Seul l’éphémère dure”, ’only the ephemeral lasts’, in a kind of Theatre of the Absurd that reflects the human condition. The experience of the everyday is out of sync giving us the sense of a Trompe d’oeil. Bureaucracy is unpredictable, the neon is preposterous, a test for visual acuity is bizarre yet that is functional in this fantasy world in real life bears some truth.

Mareschal obsessively manipulates, with a somewhat measured madness, language which to most resembles a joke or some strange poem. It’s as if Mareschal is cooking whereby he mixes the dictionary in a pot sprinkled with spices, and when stirred up alphabet soup appears but the letters are unrecognizable. A nouvelle concept cuisine that triggers a visceral reaction so that we are guided to follow our senses. Marie Cini invites and welcomes the public to the gallery to experiment with the works and will be present to answer questions as will Laurent Mareschal on specific dates.

Laurent Mareschal was born in Dijon, France in 1975 and lives and works in Paris. He exhibits regularly in France and abroad, most notably at the CAPC, (Bordeaux) invited by the Van Abbe Museum, The Grand Palais (Paris), BPS 22 (Belgium), l’Espace Croisé (Roubaix), Le Fresnoy (Tourcoing), Foundation Ecureuil (Toulouse), The Chelouche Gallery (Israel) and at the Ashdod Art Museum (Israel).