In October, Derouillon presents ‘‘Props’’ a new group exhibition curated by Marion Coindeau including Uri Aran, Diane Dal-Pra, Tetsumi Kudo, Shuang Li, Liz Magor, Kirill Savchenkov. The show will gather new productions alongside historical works.
“Props” approaches absence as a critical experience through which our everyday perceptions are reexamined. In his essay The Weird and the Eerie, Mark Fisher defines the 'eerie' as a feeling of unease arising from the failure of absence - or the failure of presence - that is, when a presence is perceived without any identifiable agent. The works brought together in the exhibition highlight these fractures in the fabric of the world, exploring the in-between space where the familiar gives way to the uncanny, and embracing the inevitability of what escapes our grasp.
Moving beyond the humor or melancholy evoked by the eerie, the artists use its unsettling quality to gently surface the forces of domination and the images that structure our everyday lives. Whether unveiling and disrupting implicit social hierarchies, revealing doubt as a political instrument of destabilization and control, or weaving playfully with the fabric of language, the works unsettle our grasp of absence - not as mere immaterial void or non-existence, but as a deeply sensitive and resonant state. For even absence, in being named, slips away from its very essence as language gives way to light and space - what’s said becomes something felt. The works’ tactile and haptic qualities foster a sense of interaction and intimacy - between us and the medium, as well as among the media themselves.
“Props” suggests both a deceptive object and something that serves as a support for something else - something that they are not, or not really, or not supposed to be, or not yet. It can be intimate and disconcerting at the same time, giving rise to moments that blend playfulness with melancholy. As Didi-Huberman writes in Ce que nous voyons, ce qui nous regarde: “Let us open our eyes to feel what we do not see” - leading us toward a more sensitive form of knowledge, a space for reflection, for challenging the obvious, and for embracing dissent.
Marion Coindeau