Sanctum Sanctorum — Galerie Mitterrand — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: June 29 → August 3, 2013

Les Frères Chapuisat à la JGM. Galerie Sanctum Sanctorum à la Jgm. Galerie impose le recueillement et une certaine forme de devoir de mémoire. En mêlant la tradition bibl... 3 - Bravo Critique

For the occasion of the project Nouvelles vagues organized by the Palais de Tokyo, the JGM. Galerie is giving free rein to the Frères Chapuisat to design a group exhibition.

The work of the Frères Chapuisat regularly makes references to the sacred, drawing inspiration from scientific research or popular religious beliefs. Their installations, which invite the visitor to penetrate confined spaces, act as places conducive to introspection. Using neurobiologist Henri Laborit’s essay Eloge de la fuite (1976) and Anthony de Mello’s spiritual guide (Awareness, 1992) as a base, the Frères Chapuisat seek to create an installation that places emphasis on the mystical dimensions of the artistic experience.

Shortly after the death of Mike Kelley, a resident and friend of Highland Park Hillside, his neighborhood in Los Angeles, decided to create a memorial to pay homage to his friend. He explains:

“I was conscious of the fact that when a friend dies, especially someone as greatly admired as Mike, it can really be helpful to have somewhere to go, something to do, to have a place where you can pour out your pain and where you can honor the person. I also believe that rituals are very important, and that grieving can include a creative process.”

In this exhibition, the Frères Chapuisat sought to create, in the sacrocant chapel which is the white cube, a parallel between death, the rituals which surround it and a work of art. In proposing a very personal vision of vanity, the Frères Chapuisat raise the status of an object from that of a work of art to that of a relic. The focus is no longer limited strictly to the intellectual dimension of the work but is broadened to the proximity with its creator, to the point of becoming an extension of it. As a result, death is the protocol of this exhibition project which reunites several artists which have deceased in recent years — Mike Kelley, Franz West, Ravi Shankar, David Weiss, Cy Twombly.

The Chapuisat brothers have decided to do a plastic intervention into the practice of exhibition and display. Each work/relic is thus presented in a small pagoda or stupa — reliquary and Buddhist place of worship — and personalized according to the artist being honored. In addition to the exhibited works, are copies of fan art, messages, texts, images and other documents relative to the disappearance of the given artist. In a deliberately sanctified atmosphere, the visitor is invited to enter the small places of worship allowing him or her to physically feel the introspective dimension of this mystical experience.

The exhibition Sanctum Sanctorum is a testament to our recent loss of some major figures in contemporary art. This is also a means for the Frères Chapuisat to question the actual form of the exhibition or the act of displaying itself in proposing a different radical approach to the exhibition and to the appreciation of works of art in general.