a choral work
1 / BUT FINALLY,
‘THIS’ DOESN'T LOOK LIKE YOU !?
Everyone has heard this absurd sentence at one time or another. So what can we do about it? What can we do with this ‘this’, with what is not simply acceptable, outside the agreed frameworks and received ideas of our supposed identity?
Yet no one is surprised that we don't talk in the same way, in the same register, to a 5-year-old child, a 40-year-old adult or about a film in an internal dialogue outside a cinema. The opposite would be worrying.
Similarly, what are we to make of our plural desires, for something else, for elsewhere, for differences, for divergences?
Painting, composing, writing: these are my passions. That is the adventure of being alive.
Henri Michaux
From 2008 onwards, with his encounters with Cy Twombly, Elisa Brune, Edouard Glissant and the reading of Fernando Pessoa and Marcel Proust among others, Séroux saw his research take on a considerable conceptual extension, at once scientific, artistic and literary.
Meeting collectors, the first of whom was the Belgian René Withofs at the end of 1980, made him appreciate the excellence of the pluralism that many of them develop with intelligence.
By contrast, the repetitive approach of many artists, based on a desire for recognition, is hard to resist. A graphic line, a technique, a process, and that's it?
‘I’ IN ’WE
Two plays by William Shakespeare cite the same obvious fact:
I am not what I am.
> In ‘Othello’ (Act 1, Scene 3) : Iago utters this phrase to express his hypocrisy and duplicity. It illustrates the complexity of his character and the way in which he hides a large part of his true personality.
> In ‘Twelfth Night’ (Act 2, Scene 4): The statement is made by the character of Feste, the play's madman, in reference to the masks that people wear in all circumstances.
Who says ‘I’ in us?
This essay by Claude Arnaud shows how the great ‘factories’ that have produced and sculpted the classic postures of social identities since Antiquity.
Religion, homeland, environment and sexual gender have largely and fortunately lost their savoir-faire; identity is no longer inherited.
Identity is no longer inherited, but acquired by those who wish to exercise free will. Today, our ‘life scenarios’, more open and varied than in the past, profoundly enrich our potential.
The works presented here bear witness to this and reflect it.
THE VIEWPOINT OF PSYCHIATRIST ERIC BERNSTEIN
Around the 1960s, Eric Berne founded transactional analysis. He studied personality by identifying three distinct ego states:
the Parent Ego,
the Adult Ego
and the Child Ego.
Each state has its own characteristic thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Analysing the interactions between these three states enables us to understand the cognitive subtleties of personal and interpersonal dynamics.
The verbal and non-verbal relationships between these ego states constantly enrich our relationships with the world, with others and with ourselves.
Eric Berne has also developed the notion of ‘psychological games’, which occur when more or less psychorigid individuals cultivate repetitive behavioural patterns based on beliefs and unconscious normative scenarios that are very often destructive.
2 / AGAINST THE TIDE
OF selfie
ARTISTIC COUNTER-CURRENT
These repetitive patterns can be found throughout the history of art. Many artists in search of visibility develop a visual code, a technique, a process that they repeat over and over again.
To satisfy the critics, the market, social recognition, everything is good to exist under cover of an obsessive storytelling. Few people, and few artists, totally escape the clutches of their time, whether they fit into it by taking advantage of the zeitgeist or resisting it. But those who count are outside the frame. Elsewhere than in the mainstream. Never from a school.
THE LUCID EYE OF AN ANTHROPOLOGIST
In his Anthropologie structurale, Claude Lévi-Strauss comments on Picasso's work:
‘He translated the profound spirit of his time very well, and if I had one reservation to make, it would be that he translated it too well and that his work constitutes one testimony among others, of this sort of imprisonment that man inflicts on himself more and more each day within his own humanity; finally, that Picasso contributed to tightening this sort of closed world where man, face to face with his works, imagines that he is self-sufficient. A kind of ideal prison. And rather dull.
AN ESCAPE ATTEMPT
In 1936, Antonin Artaud, in full possession of his powers, gave three lectures at the University of Mexico. He had embarked for overseas in the hope of finding sources of knowledge that could belie a kind of decrepitude he perceived in his initial culture. He feels that it is becoming sterile in Europe, based on false ideas of life. He aspired to weave multiple links between, on the one hand, different people in all their diversity and, on the other, the universe whose extreme formal abundance was beginning to be measured. In particular, he seeks to extend the notion of reality(ies) by freeing it from utilitarian considerations.
GERHARD RICHTER'S PRECEDENT
‘I have average health, average height (1.72 m) and average good looks. I mention this because you need these qualities to be able to paint good pictures.’
Gerhard Richter / Text from 1966
Born in Dresden in 1932, this polymorphous German painter, a monument of contemporary art, sometimes tackles figurative subjects, sometimes abstract works. Here are three keys to reading his work:
Aesthetic pluralism.
Richter explored a wide variety of artistic styles and techniques throughout his career. For example, he alternated between abstract and figurative painting.
Reflection on perception:
He questions the way we see and interpret the world around us by creating works that appear both realistic and blurred, abstract and concrete. This exploration of visual perception is reminiscent of philosophical concerns about how we construct our reality through our senses.
The dialectic between chance and control:
Richter also uses techniques of chance, such as scraping the paint or blurring the image. This dialectic between chance and control can be interpreted as a reflection on the tension between spontaneity and planning.
STANLEY KUBRICK
Stanley Kubrick is one of the world's most unusual filmmakers, not least because of the wide range of film genres he has explored throughout his life.
Formal experimentation
Kubrick pushed the boundaries of narrative. He experimented with innovative filmmaking techniques, including visual composition, editing, photography and the use of music to create unique visual experiences.
Genre diversity
He has directed films in a variety of genres, from science fiction (‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and ‘A Clockwork Orange’) to war (‘Full Metal Jacket’), film noir (‘Lolita’) and psychological drama (‘Shining’). His ability to immerse himself in different genres is an eloquent example of his formal pluralism.
Adaptability
He was renowned for his ability to adapt to the needs of each project. He would take the time to familiarise himself with the source material (books, short stories, etc.) and find creative ways of adapting these stories to the big screen.
Use of images
His mastery of images is central to his multiple forms.
Exploration of universal themes
Although Kubrick tackled a wide range of subjects and genres, he frequently explored universal themes: failure, violence, technology, madness and the human condition. These cross-cutting concepts can be found in many of his works, regardless of the specific form they take.
3 / CONCEPTUAL
MEANING
A reminder
Art is always conceptual. Leonardo da Vinci's quote is clear: ‘La pittura è cosa mentale’, painting is a thing of the mind.
Don't confuse subject with object
- The subject: Whatever the technique used, the subject is never more than a support - a pretext for the essential: style, form, innovation.
- The subject: Works that count open the door to something ‘unprecedented’, something that will change the way we see the world.
In this way, most of the works deal with a pretextual subject that is never the object of the research. The conceptual adventure invites the pleasure of unearthing the unthought, i.e. the issue buried in the colour that is now coming to the fore.
AN EXAMPLE
The subject of these 4 inks is the female orgasm, framed for a fraction of a second. The subject is elsewhere.
AMBIGUITY REDUCTION
In cognitive science, this phenomenon refers to the process by which individuals seek to eliminate or minimise uncertainty and confusion in understanding information or stimuli, using cues, contexts or signals to arrive at a clearer and more precise interpretation. This helps to make sense of the information received, by simplifying complex information.
The aim: To study what is known in cognitive science as ‘ambiguity reduction’, i.e. the way in which these inks are interpreted by the viewer.
How our eyes tell us...
Doubts may arise: pleasure or pain?
- For some, the evocation of pleasure is obvious and jubilant.
- For others, the suffering is obvious and repulsive.
COGNITIVE BIASES
Doubts about interpretation can lead to a tendency to perceive things selectively, on the basis of emotions and even absurd beliefs.
Cognitive biases can lead to irrational and inaccurate decisions and incorrect judgements, favouring certain information over others.
They contribute to the persistence of stereotypes and prejudices, preventing the learning of new information or the correction of erroneous beliefs. They lead to misunderstandings and communication problems.
Working with images of female orgasms invites us to reflect on how we perceive things when they are not unambiguous.
a sign of the times
‘Reducing a person to a single identity is the beginning of racism.’
In 2019, this was the tone of a Belgian campaign to defend the freedom of everyone to be irreducible to anything. Crystal clear.
Through a series of portraits of ‘ordinary’ people, the ‘Racism, you're better than that’ campaign raises awareness of the use of stigmatising clichés: from stereotypes to shortcuts, identity is too often reduced to a supposedly simple origin, a philosophy of life, an appearance... Deconstruct these absurd images...
