G.B. Jones — Air de Paris
The Air de Paris gallery offers a brilliant retrospective of the work of Canadian artist G.B. Jones, a key figure of the queer punk scene from the late 1980s to the early 1990s.
Rich in materials that subvert the codes of the press, collage, and design, in intimate photographs whose beauty lies in their spontaneity and “attitude,” and above all in the unique opportunity to discover her films brought together for the first time in France, the exhibition Double Bill retraces a polymorphic trajectory in which visual shocks are aligned into a movement full of political stakes. Although the exhibition setup could have benefited from more scale, notably through the use of multiple screens, this perspective on her work proves immensely valuable.
Experimental and, in a certain sense, rooted in a naturalism whose contemplative dimension reinforces its political scope, her film work accompanies with an ethereal experience the explosive dimension of her activist activity within the late-1980s underground scene. The images, like the commendable curatorial intent of Juliette Desorgues and the gallery, pay tribute to a singular gaze that, nourished by the margins that fueled her creativity, never ceases to attend to the movement surrounding her.
A fascinating oscillation between worlds that, after bridging punk aesthetics and pop détournement,
The crystallization of a creation that has never stopped fighting, beating in rhythm with what surrounds it, transmitting its gestures, tensions, and imaginaries.
G.B. Jones: Double Bill — The Films of G.B. Jones, Air de Paris, 43 rue de la Commune de Paris, 93230 Romainville — 9 Nov – 20 Dec 2025, Tue – Sat, 10 am – 6 pm
