LA REALITE N'A PAS BESOIN DE MOI: RENAUD AUGUSTE-DORMEUIL

In his exhibition at the gallery, entitled La réalité n'a pas besoin de moi, the artist questions the invisible structures that influence our perception of an increasingly mediatised reality, working on the border between visibility and invisibility, light and darkness, memory, and oblivion. Neither an archival document, nor photography in the strict sense, nor even pure modelling, his works possess the ambiguous charm of that which defies definition and, with each attempt to qualify its status, transcends the too narrow framework in which we would like to place them.

The new Hope It Was Worth It series comprises 12 Aubusson tapestries, famous since the Hundred Years' War. Each piece is associated with a historical event from the time it was woven, transforming these works into palimpsests in which the history of art merges with the history of mankind. The gallery is exhibiting 3 new tapestries from this series.

Also on show is The Day Before_Star System, a series that shows a map of the sky on the eve of an aerial attack on civilians, from Guernica to Hiroshima or New York. Each of these starry skies bears a striking resemblance to its predecessor. But these starry skies, tragically inscribed in history, carry within them the tragedy to come. They speak of war, violence, and death without showing them, in that moment before when everything is still possible, but everything has already happened. In Spin-Off_Je Me Fous Du Passé, the artist strips the drone of its military function by transforming it into a neon sign, thereby landing it the poetic status of a modern Hermes. Finally, in I Was There, Power Blackout, Auguste-Dormeuil explores the possibility of creating an image not from light but from the presence of darkness. Each point of light is obscured by a black dot on the glass surface of a window until the city lights gradually disappear.

Renaud Auguste-Dormeuil, winner of the HSBC Prize for Photography, the Meurice Prize for Contemporary Art, and the 1% Art Market Prize, is also a former resident of the Villa Médicis. His works has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions major museums and institutions in France and abroad (Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Nice, Palais de Tokyo, Fondation Ricard, Fondation Caixa, Swiss Institute de NY, etc.) and can be found in major contemporary art museums, foundations, and private collections.