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EXHIBITION

An exhibition of artwork that was made in Japan between the years 2017 and 2020. A book and a performance.

FILM

The sculpture stands at the edge of the sea, vulnerable. It is a door between two universes, one solid, the other liquid, a passage from one state to another. Between these two elements, fire, both purifier and redeemer. Its passage is always a test. An ordeal.

2020

The Man encounters The Woman in a mysterious place where creatures live. While making love to one of them, he becomes her by changing gender. He opens himself to creation and the possibility of motherhood. He will be judged not for who he is, but for what he wants to become: God.

Life is a succession of murders of ourselves.
It is necessary to cut a branch of the tree so that the others grow better. Stronger. Thicker.

We cry in front of the dead branch because it hurts.
But, to go forward, we shouldn't fear the confusion and the devastation of a part of ourselves.
This murder is a rebirth.

PERFORMANCE

We are always two
One living and one dead
Each in turn
Sunken cities where captive suns sleep.
At this time which is not yet day but which is already no longer night,
With destruction comes the new beginning.

Æternal Death is an imaginary cemetery. It is a study of mourning — of self-mourning. Each day takes away a part of me that will never return, a process of dying which, over the years, I feel ever more viscerally and painfully. It’s with this loss that I construct who I continue to be, but paradoxically it is this same loss that gives me the feeling of not being. That one has made me unexist. The two are linked, and both are to be lived.

The sculpture stands at the edge of the sea, vulnerable. It is a door between two universes, one solid, the other liquid, a passage from one state to another. Between these two elements, fire, both purifier and redeemer. Its passage is always a test. An ordeal.

PHOTOGRAPHY / POÉSIE EN MOUVEMENT

Ananias is the one who wanted to be another.

We are not jealous of gods
We do not serve them
We do not fear them
But at the risk of our lives
We are stirred to be of their chancy keeping
When they are no more remembered of.

PHOTOGRAPHY / POÉSIE POUR POUVOIR

The title is hexagram n°27. It evokes the act of devouring, swallowing, the junction between the lips, at once a place of meeting, of suture, but also of separation, dichotomy, forever being torn apart. Together but separate.

The contemporary violence of the image is one linked to its transparency, because that is what is expected of it, that everything must be seen. The image (particularly digital) is the realm of this visibility. However, it is also a vanishing point, of beings, secrets, and the ‘unseen’.

The Nightjar's life can be so short that they have a simultaneous awareness of all temporality – they experience all time of their existence in one instant. And when this bird meets the love of his life, he becomes both happy and sad; happy because he loves and is loved, and sad because he knows that it is already over. The female, after laying, broods her eggs in her mouth. When they hatch, she dies.

There is a precise moment in time
When a man reaches the exact middle of his life,
A fraction of a second,
A fleeting bit of time, quicker than a glance,
Quicker than a fit of passion,
Quicker than light.

And a man is aware of this moment.

A unique God for a triple person.
The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one in essence.

Assol was a princess from ancient times.
She stared at the ocean all her life,
sure that one day Love would come.
It never came. But she never lost hope.

Hope is what dies last.
Always.

Moirai is a vanity.
Youth making love to death.

These images contrast the temptations of the mind and the limits of the body. They dig for a language that reinvents the dark lightning of destiny and celebrate, as an echographia, the struggle for life. Terrifying. Lyrical. A run towards emptiness.

SCULPTURE

The sculpture stands at the edge of the sea, vulnerable. It is a door between two universes, one solid, the other liquid, a passage from one state to another. Between these two elements, fire, both purifier and redeemer. Its passage is always a test. An ordeal.

Æternal Death is an imaginary cemetery. It is a study of mourning — of self-mourning. Each day takes away a part of me that will never return, a process of dying which, over the years, I feel ever more viscerally and painfully. It’s with this loss that I construct who I continue to be, but paradoxically it is this same loss that gives me the feeling of not being. That one has made me unexist. The two are linked, and both are to be lived.

I made an egg out of nests from flies I found in the trees. Then I made two other nests for this egg-nest. The birth one is contained in the one that contains life when life is no longer life anymore. Our last nest. Our mother earth. The “terra madre”. I buried it all, life, death, in the same simultaneous movement, to show its precariousness and its ephemerality ; like these birds whose life can be so short that they have a simultaneous awareness of all temporality. Thus they experience all time of their existence in one instant. And when one of these birds meets the love of his life, he becomes both happy and sad; happy because he loves and is loved, and sad because he knows that it is already over.

DRAWING

They call "Negative Hands", the paintings of hands found in Altamira, the Magdalenian caves of southern Atlantic Europe. The edges of these hands - pressed outspread upon the rock - were soaked in colour. Most often in blue, and black. Sometimes red. No explanation has been found for this practice.

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EDITION

䷚” is the first part of a project made in Japan between 2017 and 2020. This first part is a collaboration work with Mariya Olegovna. It is a photographic book with a long poem running through it.

« The dry light, says Heraclitus, creates the wisest and the best soul. Here comes the time of damp souls. The tree is gone. The woman lost her face. All windows are closed. The gods have deserted the men - who lost every memories of who their creator was ».

JOURNAL





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MMXXII © ARNO BOUCHARD

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