Portrait de 3/4 — Une proposition d’Alain Bublex — Galerie G-P & N Vallois — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: May 5 → 31, 2014

For the group show entitled Portrait de 3/4 (3/4 facing portrait), Alain Bublex tiptoes on a tightrope: being an artist assuming the role of curator.

“I didn’t really have an idea for the hanging and I decided not to look for one and start from there: to work without an idea, without a theme or a principle, without a demonstration to give. To simply assemble available works, to pair them without any intention and with a relative indifference; leaving only an impression following another, like how a discovery can bring about another one, due to the space it creates, the empty space it leaves.

The works will neighbour each other in the gallery regardless of their provenance, may it be historical, or geographical — similar to the way they sit next to each other in a storage — never in alphabetical order, nor in order of arrival, a mix of the two and subject to the inevitable movements perpetually disorganising their disposition.

Their only relation (and it’s already something !) is the fact that they are all registered in the gallery’s catalogue.

Together, and because they are not part of any demonstration, they weave a portrait.

But it remains probable that they should unveil part of the secret dialogues, the connivance and suspicion that occupy them when we are not there, when the lights are out and the alarm is on.”

In the artist’s mind, the 3/4 facing portrait is of the gallery. Still, the subtlety of the hanging, the architectural interventions designed especially for this project, even the lighting and scenography all constitute delicate touches allowing us to make out a selfportrait of Alain Bublex himself.