Damien & The Love Guru

This future is unthinkable. Yet here we are, thinking it.

Group exhibition

Installation view

Rebecca Ackroyd, Simon Brossard & Julie Villard, Carcrash, Botond Keresztesi, Roxanne Mail- let, Pakui Hardware, Vanessa da Silva, Anna Solal, Matilda Tjäder.

Performances by Carcrash, Roxanne Maillet and Matilda Tjäder. Curated by Juliette Desorgues

Coexisting, we are thinking future coexistence. Predicting it and more: keeping the unpredictable one open.
Yet such a future, the open future, has become taboo.
Because it is real, yet beyond concept.
Because it is weird.
Art is thought from the future. Thought we cannot explicitly think at present. Thought we may not think or speak at all.
If we want thought different from the present, then thought must veer towards art.
To be a thing at all – a rock, a lizard, a human – is to be in a twist.
How thought longs to twist and turn like the serpent poetry!
Or is art veering towards thought? Does it arrive? The threads of fate have tied our tongues. Tongue twisters inclined towards nonsense.
Logic includes nonsense as long as it can tell truth.
The logic of nonsense.
The needle skipped the groove of the present.
Into this dark forest you have already turned.

Timothy Morton, Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence (New York: Columbia University Press), p.1-2.

This future, which philosopher Timothy Morton begins to consider, serves as a backdrop for the exhibition presented. A distant future, or past, is imagined, wrought with destruction and decay, ravaged by the effects of anthropocenic capitalism. Like the serpent, this future world playfully twists and loops, biting its own tale. A multitude of beings—human, animal, vegetal, geological or technological—have long co-existed within its dark landscape.

Gradually, with time, the unpredictable occurs. A weird world emerges, inhabited by hybrid beings, sprouting out of the crevasses of the anthropocenic ground. Living both within and yet carefully eschewing the meshes of capitalist detritus, these interstitial creatures have evolved and morphed, guided by an infinite web of emotions.

From convulsing floral composites whose tails offer sexual play to insect-like creatures engaged in digital gaming, they are like tongue twisters of another time; haunting us amidst the chaos of our present world; reminding us to return to the joyful, playful gestures of the everyday.

Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Pakui Hardware
The Return of Sweetness
2018
Glass objects, heat-treated PVC, textile fabric, latex, sea urchin spikes, silicone, chia seeds, cables, metal clamps
Dimensions variable
Pakui Hardware
The Return of Sweetness
2018
Glass objects, heat-treated PVC, textile fabric, latex, sea urchin spikes, silicone, chia seeds, cables, metal clamps
Dimensions variable
Pakui Hardware
The Return of Sweetness
2018
Glass objects, heat-treated PVC, textile fabric, latex, sea urchin spikes, silicone, chia seeds, cables, metal clamps
Dimensions variable
Pakui Hardware
The Return of Sweetness
2018
Glass objects, heat-treated PVC, textile fabric, latex, sea urchin spikes, silicone, chia seeds, cables, metal clamps
Dimensions variable
Pakui Hardware
The Return of Sweetness
2018
Glass objects, heat-treated PVC, textile fabric, latex, sea urchin spikes, silicone, chia seeds, cables, metal clamps
Dimensions variable
Anna Solal
Twin Kite
2018
Mixed media
121 x 102 cm
Anna Solal
Twin Kite (detail)
Anna Solal
Twin Kite (detail)
Rebecca Ackroyd
Between us
2018
Gouache, charcoal and soft pastel on somerset satin paper
20 x 30 cm
Vanessa da Silva
Muamba #1
2018
Polystyrene, fibre glass, jesmonite, pigment
85 x 60 x 49 cm
Vanessa da Silva
Muamba #1 (additional view)
Vanessa da Silva
Muamba #1 (detail)
Botond Keresztesi
The Death of a Tamagotchi
2018
Acrylic and airbrush on canvas
120 x 105 cm
Anna Solal
My lovely ears
2018
Mixed media
27 x 25 cm
Simon Brossard & Julie Villard
Convulsing Shell II
2019
Resin, metal, polyurethane paint
168 x 50 x 80 cm
Simon Brossard & Julie Villard
Convulsing Shell II (detail)
Simon Brossard & Julie Villard
Convulsing Shell II (detail)
Simon Brossard & Julie Villard
Convulsing Shell II (detail)
Rebecca Ackroyd
Hunter/Gatherer VIII
2018
Steel, plaster, wax, paper, epoxy resin
90 x 60 x 50 cm
Rebecca Ackroyd
Hunter/Gatherer VIII (additional view)
Rebecca Ackroyd
Hunter/Gatherer VIII (detail)
Rebecca Ackroyd
Hunter/Gatherer VIII (detail)