3/4/2014
Eric Baudelaire and Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc
Kiosk, Ghent
L'oeil se noie. Their work stems from a shared interest in the gaps and fissures that make up stories, as well as the challenges and promises they hold.
The exhibition L’œil se noie is the result of an intuitive dialogue between the two French artists Eric
Baudelaire (1973, Salt Lake City, currently based in Paris) and Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc (1977,
French Guiana, currently based in Metz). Their work stems from a shared interest in the gaps and
fissures that make up stories, as well as the challenges and promises they hold.
At the heart of their practices is a desire to highlight the tensions between what has been, what seems
to be, and what could have been; to pick up the traces of forgotten and unresolved questions and
divert them towards uncertain destinations, out of the dead-end circuits where things and thoughts
get trapped in their own finitudes. In short, L’œil se noie is about “unfinished business”, as one of the
pieces in the show suggests. Sometimes quite literally, as in the case of Abonnenc’s search for the lost
film Guns for Banta (1970) by Sarah Maldoror, a film dealing with the struggle for the independence in
Guinea and Cape Verde that has never seen the light of day, or Baudelaire’s work The Makes based on
some of Michelangelo Antonioni’s unrealized scenarios.
In other cases, their work consists more of a rewiring of connections between one sense and another,
between one time and another. The film work Ça va, ça va, on continue, for example, highlights the
complications implicit in remembering, representing and voicing distant histories of anti-colonial
revolt and revolutionary insurrection. Chanson d’Automne, in turn, is an assemblage of clippings from
The Wall Street Journal dated September 2008 that reveals a poetry of resistance within the fracture
lines of a dysfunctional economic order. At odds with all laments of the ‘death of the image’ and the
‘end of history’, the works in this exhibition propose a renewed faith in the hidden potential of the
present, puncturing the impasses and aporias of finitude, and giving way to the necessarily unfinished
spaces for wandering and wondering.
L’œil se noie is organized in conjunction with The Fire Next Time, a two day program of interventions
and screenings dealing with the militant image and its resonances (03.04.2014-04.04.2014, KASK -
School of Arts Gent). Both events are organized as part of The Uses of Art – The Legacy of 1848 and
1989, a project initiated by the museum confederation L’Internationale.
More information: www.thefirenexttime.be
Paris-based artist Eric Baudelaire’s (1973, Salt Lake City) recent solo exhibitions were held at Bétonsalon, Paris;
Kunsthall, Bergen; Galerie Greta Meert, Brussels; Beirut Art Center, Lebanon; Gasworks, London; and The
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
Occasions and venues where he has recently participated in group shows include 8th Taipei Biennial, Taiwan;
Baltic Triennial of International Art, Vilnius; Berlin Documentary Forum II, Haus der Kulturen der Welt; La
Triennale, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Le Plateau / FRAC, Paris; FRAC, Metz; and Casino Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
His films have been in competition at many festivals including Locarno, FID Marseille and International Film
Festival Rotterdam.
Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc (1977, French Guiana, currently based in Metz) has recently presented his work in
solo shows in such venues as Kunsthalle Basel; Bielefelder Kunstverein; Fondation Serralves, Porto; Pavilion,
Leeds; La Ferme du Buisson, Noisiel; Marcelle Alix, Paris; and Gasworks, London.
Among others, his work was included in numerous group shows: Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid; Palais de
Tokyo, Paris; MUDAM, Luxembourg; Khiasma, Les Lilas; MAC Marseille; La Triennale, Palais de Tokyo, Paris;
14th Prix Fondation d’entreprise Ricard, Paris; ICA- Institute of contemporary art, University of Pennsylvania;
Gasworks, London; Museum of Modern Art, Paris; and FRAC Lorraine, Metz.
Press contact:
liene.aerts@hogent.be
Opening:
Friday 4 April 2014
Public opening: 20.00
Press and professional preview (by appointment): 16.00 – 20.00
The opening will be followed by a concert at Minard theatre at 10 PM: Crazy Nigger & Gay Guerilla
Julius Eastman
These compositions for 4 pianos will be performed by Frederik Croene, Bob Gilmore, Stéphane Ginsburgh, Reinier van Houdt.
KIOSK
Louis Pasteurlaan 2 - 9000 Ghent
Tuesday – Friday: 14.00 – 18.00
Saturday – Sunday: 11.00 – 18.00
Closed on Mondays