Vincent J. Stoker — Heterotopia, la fin de l’Histoire — Alain Gutharc Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: October 24 → December 21, 2013

The end of History affirms a faith in man’s ability to surpass his own condition. Belief in progress finds expression in Hegel’s “The end of History”. Reason and technique should bring about the resolution of conflicts, heralding an age free of tension and beyond the boundaries of contradiction.



The places in the series Heterotopia; The end of history are self- imposed through their monolithic rigidity and appear as unalterable truths. The colossal face of these sculptures exudes that which seems eternally enduring. In an instant the gaze is seduced into forgetting and contesting the truth portrayed in Heterotopia; The tragic downfall which exposes the vanity of the monument and the precarious nature of society.



Belief in progress is irresistible. In flattering the eye it blinds us. Standing in the middle of this artificial rowdiness, this excess of civilisation perfectly detached from nature — a nature that appears here as an object for mourning — the viewer loses their footing, falling deeper into an abyss of culture. The dazzled gaze is overpowered. In a futile search for clarity, little by little, it allows itself to be swallowed whole. Man, as part of nature, is no more. He has entered the end of History, a time wherein his putrescent matter vanishes within the inorganic entrails of this surgical topography.