Bonjour tristesse, désir, ennui, appétit, plaisir — Jiri Kovanda — La Galerie, centre d’art contemporain — Lecture — Slash Paris

Past: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 6 PM → 8 PM

In the performance XXX, With a man’s hand poked through a hole in the wall, he is offering bonbons to visitors (2013-2013), Jiri Kovanda is directly addressing visitors to the exhibition, committing himself physically even as he remains out of sight. The visitor who takes the candy then becomes partially implicated in a something invisible to the rest of the public: no one will see him perform the childish, private act of swallowing the candy. And when the visitor accepts the offering, the artist’s outstretched hand is left empty, as if begging. This duality seems a metaphor of a transaction between the artist and his audience: a touch of sweetness in return for the first step towards a one-to-one exchange.