Tere Recarens — Le fleuve suit son cours — Anne Barrault Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: January 8 → February 19, 2011

As the river flows

Frédéric Oyharçabal : Back from your second stay in Dersim (Turkey), you sent me the photograph of a man running up a hill. One of your first works is the painting of a “girl who runs or nothing” — Chica que corre a la nada. In 1996, you put your camera in the yard of a building and you managed to go down the stairs in fifteen seconds, the time for your camera with the self-timer on to take the photograph. (j’ai réussi, 1996). Why do like so much to run ?

Tere Recarens : I run out of necessity and curiosity.

F.O : Though you live in Berlin, you never stay there very long. What urges you so to roam about the world ?

T.R : In Barcelona, I am called Terremoto (tremblement de terre).

F.O : When you arrived in Berlin, you shot a short film in which you swept the clouds during one minute’s free fall with a parachute above Berlin (Beserein, 2003). In New York where you also lived, you planned to jump from the highest building of PS1
(I was ready to jump, 1999). What does jumping mean for you?

T.R : Each jump is to be confronted with a new culture.

F.O : Once you wrote to me : “ I know what a soul and a spirit are”, and you drew a candle. In Dersim, last summer, we went for a walk in the Munzur valley in order to visit the places of Alevi worship. You offered , as Alevis do, to put a candle inside the little niche which is to be found in every holy places and to make a wish. Recently you quoted this prayer Tibetans say : “ may every living being rise”.

T.R : I have dreams. It is felicity, not money.

F.O : You draw a lot. Sometimes I wonder about your drawings.

T.R : I draw as I wash my face.

F.O : You span round and round 127 times before you fell (Tomber, 1997). There is this photograph taken at PS1 in which you are seen practising jumping. The title of the photograph is Fall in love (1999). In the book about your stay in Mali, there is this sentence embroidered on a piece of material : “ LET US GO TO BED MY LOVE MY DARLING “. Are love and drunkenness (exhilaration) important themes in your work?

T.R : I like the language of the body : signs, sounds, heart.

F.O : Can you make a comment about this message written on Malian fabric : “Look with new eyes”.

T.R : Duality is what I learnt in Mali.

F.O : Have you anything to say about your exhibition?

[…]