ALTAR

Opening reception 22nd. June 2019
show runs until 3rd. July 2019

With:

Joan Jonas
Ji-Min Park
Antoine Renard

There is a tear in the eye of the dragon, you see the reflexion of yourself. This drop is a cluster-full net, waving fabrics and pearls from far-away. The divine reptile has a message, it bears a reminiscence. You witness the altar collapsing under his fire spit. And still honour the decorum. It burns and self-destroys to finally diffuse its hidden smell. Tears will extinguish the fire, so much it creates a puddle of wax. Put your finger in it, let it dry and see this special effect skin peeling off. Wear the harness, go on your knees and wipe the perfume. Wring it out in the holly bucket. Drink it, throw up the snot of your childhood. Then dive, dive deep under the surface of the lake to rinse off the dregs. And gaze at the infant body, the sexless character you became. A.F. 2019

 
ANTOINE RENARD “Architecture #1 (la petite danseuse de 14 ans)”, 2019 wax, essential oils and aluminium.



ANTOINE RENARD “Seaux de parfum”, 2019 buckets, floral essences (Left: blackberry essential, camphora, thimolina, myrrh, menthol crystals, agua de Florida, Pusanga. Right: black tobacco from Iquitos, verveine essential, cinnamon, grey amber, floral bath mix, Givenchy cologne).



ANTOINE RENARD “Pleurnicheurs” #1 to #6, 2019 framed watercolor on inkjet prints.


ANTOINE RENARD “Architecture #2 (Notre Dame)”, 2019 wax, essential oils, wood and aluminium.



JI-MIN PARK “Untitled” #1 and #2, 2019 acrylic, watercolors, glitters, latex and chains.



JI-MIN PARK “Tears” #1 to #3, 2019 acrylic, watercolors, glitters, latex, fabrics and chains.



JOAN JONAS “Disturbances”, 1974 15 minutes video.


JOAN JONAS

(1936, lives and works in New York)
From the 60’s she starts a reflection on performance due to her close relationship with the Judson Dance Theatre. She was a pioneer in combining video, dance, performances and installations. In “Distur- bances” Jonas uses reflections on a lake as a mirror to displace reality, creating a disruption and the illusion of presence. In ALTAR this video represents the historical embodiment of thematic of reflection, water and memory and the dot dot dot in which the mind will be drifting. “Disturbances begins with a Symbolist-like image of two women, dressed in white, seen only as reflections in water.... Throughout the tape the water fills the monitor, creating layers of images. The reflec- tions on the surface of the water are superimposed on the activities that take place underneath the surface.” —David Ross

JI-MIN PARK

(scorpio, born in Seoul - South Korea, lives and works in Paris, studied at ENSAD and currently in residence at Pavillon – FRAC Aquitaine) Park makes a point in saying that her “Tears” are pictural gestures. The organic surface, the special effect skins of those sculptures are associate to the repetitive rituals of the painter. They are traces that you could reactivate, remnants of a ceremonial. We see those bundles as nets carrying all the memories of her past, swept along drops of childhood. The sacred character of her pieces comes from the Korean traditional belief of the Tae-Mong, the dream of conception a pregnant woman has and that dictates the destiny of the child. Park’s mother dreamt of a desert island far lost in an ocean, guarded by two white tigers. This liquid symbolic of the loneliness of the divine animal flows in her imagination.

ANTOINE RENARD

(1984, born in Paris, lives and works between Lourdes and Berlin, stud- ied at Beaux-Arts de Dijon and currently in residence at Cité interna- tionale des Arts de Paris)
The “Pleurnicheurs” series (in english: whiners or weepers) is central to the new body of works Renard is displaying for ALTAR. It gives the keys to access the memories of childhood through nostalgic recollec- tions or reminiscences of the sensitive sadness of kids. The wax pieces are weeping too, dripping their fragrant tears on the floor. They are architectural models echoing the recent destruction of Notre Dame, diffusing the smell of wood sap and burning incense. The tears will extinguish the flames and symbolically overflow. The purge buckets, used in shamanic ceremonials in Peru, where the artist spent much time learning with the curanderos perfumeros, are receptacles of liquid odours and de facto recollections of the past.