The Exhibition
Delete it all, reinvent it all urgently. Impose the diktat of absolute happiness and universal thought … that is the gospel of the Modern! In its crazed acceleration, contemporary history is defined, with impeccable gusto, by some of the most remarkable creatures of our rapidly evolving society: the Moderns. They have no other names, no origin, no religious confession. They have no language of their own, nor do they possess a distinct culture providing them with a specific identity. They live without borders, without resentment, and, therefore, without any real issues to concern themselves with. Already immerged in the global, virtual space, they are the premises of the Mankind of tomorrow. Adepts of the “yes” without the “no”, the “good” without the “bad”, the “me” without the “us”, of consensus rather than polemic, they dream of being perfect. So they smudge their errors, create illusions, rejoice in their questionable bliss. Impatient to transform society, the Moderns are candid optimists, more modern than Modernity itself. Proselytes of a consensual, universal style of thought, they are armed with a kind of permanent happiness. The act of pleasing everybody becomes an article of faith. But what if their efforts were to lead to the end of history as we have always known it? The Trilogy of the Moderns is a Revolution in three acts. Between comedy and tragedy, it paints a picture of a confused humanity, blindly groping in the darkness, guided by an absolute desire for generalised happiness.
As committed witnesses of the metamorphoses affecting society, the photographer, Gérard Rancinan, and the writer, Caroline Gaudriault, entertain an ongoing dialogue, delivering, each in their own medium, their observations on humanity in its mad progress. In this world premiere, they unveil, after seven years of work, their trilogy in its entirety. The authors are no more able than anyone else to escape their era and its illusions. Victims and profiteers of a modernity full of promises and disappointments, they describe and recount the world with nostalgia, concern, humour and, above all, lucidity.
A committed perspective on the major changes affecting contemporary humanity …
The acceleration of history, the desire for unalterable beauty, the quest for eternity, the endless longing for a Promised Land, the urge to self-destructive, the virtualisation of the world and an absolute need for modernity. All these things behove us to keep a watchful eye on the Metamorphoses affecting humanity. For the first time, Man has reached the limits of his innovations. With Hiroshima, he conjured up the potential for utter annihilation. Since then, he has entered a world which escapes him entirely. Caught up in the cogs of an infernal machine, he has become the slave of his own creations. Gérard Rancinan follows the thread of art history, exploiting links with classical artists and appropriating universal themes to recount his era and its great upheavals. On a Raft of Illusion, the slaves of yesteryear have become jobless migrants, risking their lives for the ambiguous allure of distant shores. In the Big Supper, Leonardo’s ascetic masterpiece becomes an orgy of cheap, brightly coloured food, whose supercilious host prefers more organic fare. Posing a series of ethical questions, Caroline Gaudriault appeals to our conscience. Metamorphoses is a provocation, a call to reflection.
Effacing traces, cultures, languages …
Aren’t we already clones? The same culture, the same jeans, the same fast food, the same i-Phones … Hypotheses multiply about a world in search of itself, full of promise, verging on the point of a nervous breakdown. The hysterical recourse to science, the unbridled appeals to the ego, the promotion of worldwide industrialisation, the dictatorship of a univocal emotion, the obsession with cultural democratization … When 25 languages disappear from the face of the world every year, when the civilizations which they once expressed end up as relics in the world’s museums, when all trace of memory is efface, what remains of our heritage? In this oneiric, experimental work, Gérard Rancinan creates bubbles of thought like suspended instants in which free will still exists. In the midst of the global cacophony by which we are surrounded, Caroline Gaudriault proposes an ethnological, linguistic, naturalistic examination … When the transition is complete, our still almost human world will have become a gargantuan museum.
Welcome to the giant funfair that is society …
When men have finally freed themselves from all responsibility and all commitment, when they have unburdened themselves of the idea of courage, they will at last be able to live entirely in their artificial world. A happy, ideal, festive world: a Wonderful World. Like a giant funfair, this strange universe will be home to a host of superheroes, new universal idols living in untrammelled freedom. The rules of the game have been defined: permanent entertainment, necessary infantilisation, absolute virtuality, universal happiness … A Wonderful World in which reality no longer exists, in which it is possible to be someone else. But the schizophrenic delirium of its inhabitants – men and women transformed into real life versions of Mickey Mouse, Scrooge McDuck and Pinocchio – invites an ironic gaze. Wonderful World is a contemporary mirror reflecting either a simple sarcastic fable or, if we’re not careful, a troubling reality.
THE JOURNEY
Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France - 2008
***
Himalayas Art Contemporary Museum, Shanghai, China - 2014
***
Himalayas Art Contemporary Museum, Shanghai, China - 2014
***
Chapelle Sainte-Anne, La Baule-Escoublac, France - 2017
***
Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy - 2012
***
Londonewcastle Project Space, Shoreditch, London, Great Britain - 2012
***
Danubiana Contemporary Art Museum of Bratislava, Slovakia - 2013
***
Montresso Art Foundation, Jardin Rouge, Marrakech, Morocco - 2016
***
Museum of Huelva, Spain - 2015
***
Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, Monaco - 2015
***
***
