Les Bains-Douches, Alençon

As of September 15, 2016:

I’m not a curator, barely a filmmaker—more of an artist, really. To fill my time and make a living, I teach motion design, a somewhat obscure discipline somewhere between graphic design, video, and special effects.

Very often, when I’m invited to speak, I first think about what I don’t want to say rather than what I aspire to express. That’s just how I work—I react by exclusion, as Atro says in The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. Maybe it’s a sign of the times, but it doesn’t really matter, because I’ve chosen to be an artist. That gives me a social framework and forces me to adhere to certain conventions. Conventions that I then have the pleasure to complain about, to reject, and ultimately to accept. It keeps me alive, it gives me energy. So I don’t collapse into bitterness and commentary—I propose forms or experiences, then I claim them, regret them, and sometimes condemn them.

For now, I can at least say what I won’t do at Les Bains-Douches in the role of curator. I don’t want to put together a group show—I’m not sensitive to that kind of format and I don’t really understand how it works. I have no idea how to assemble works under a theme or issue, how to create rhythm in a space, reading paths, or dialogues between works.

I respect curators for that—I actually enjoy visiting exhibitions as a viewer—but I’m simply not capable of doing it myself. Partly because I don’t follow contemporary art closely enough. I don’t read American blogs, I don’t buy Flash Art. And also because I’m afraid of becoming a mere imitator. Out of ignorance, I might end up playing a game that isn’t mine, and produce an exhibition that feels like a caricature of a group show.

So I’ll make the exhibition the way I’d make a video using green-screen compositing—my signature move 🙁—using the exhibition as a pretext to challenge myself against the demands of another artist.

What I want is to use the authority of a deadline (the opening) to spend time with him or her, to confront their ideas and modes of production. Again, I don’t want to exhibit one of my friends, nor someone whose work resembles mine—quite the opposite.

Maybe the simplest thing would be to go with the first person I meet. I’m reminded of Jacques Doillon’s film The First Comer and can’t help finding that selection method utterly charming. Maybe I should choose the first person I meet, and face their desires.

Synopsis of the film The First Comer by Jacques Doillon (2008):
The girl is in her twenties and comes from a bourgeois background.
She’s looking to bring a bit of light and levity to her life, which she sees as very lacking and useless. Lacking the intensity she needs.
She decides to give her love—not to the most charming, or the most deserving, or the most admirable. No, those people don’t need her. She’ll give her love to the first comer.

With the artist, we’ll do everything together from A to Z: meet, exchange, suggest, criticize, argue, reconcile, create, destroy, exhibit. Maybe, in the end, there won’t even be a final work—or maybe the artist will invite others. Maybe the only thing left will be a film documenting our relationship—or maybe not. We don’t know, and that’s precisely the holy grail of living in the present: moving forward blindly, without visibility or crushing convictions.

As of May 10, 2017:

Very soon after writing that first text, I came face to face with The First Comer. His name is Mateusz Choróbski, and he’s originally from Poland. I met him by chance at the opening of a friend’s exhibition in Warsaw. I didn’t speak to him directly, but I still made sure to find out who he was. After doing some research on Facebook, I was able to message him. Here’s the first message I sent—in very imperfect English—and his response, fortunately, was a positive one.

L’échange date du 19 mars 2017 :

Arnaud Dezoteux :

Dear Mateusz Chorobski,

I’m not sure if you remember me. My name is Arnaud Dezoteux and I’m a french artist. We actually met very quickly on september 2016, when Charlie Malgat (video artist and also my girlfriend) was doing an exhibition at ROD in Warsaw. If I’m contacting you right now, it is not because of my artistic pratice, but rather because I’m curating a show in France, in a art center called « Les Bains Douches » in Alençon. When the director of the art center asked me to curate an exhibition, I proposed a quite radical theme : to take the first artist that I would meet after having written my proposal of the exhibition. I wrote it on the middle of September 2016, and I think I met you maybe two weeks after that. I am not a curator and I don’t pretend to be one. I usually work on video pieces and installations, involving actors and stories (somewhere between french Nouvelle Vague and cheesy Science Fiction). I’m not sure if we spoke together when we met, and I don’t know anything about your art practice. I just remember that you were talking to Charlie about your work and your friend’s works. That was at night, and we were having a wonderful barbecue with Lukasz, Magdalena and your others friends. I was a bit drunk and also tired of speaking english all day long. If I remember well, I was sitting between you and Charlie and not really listening to the conservation. I was in the same kind of mood that we are during vacations (I was actually in vacations, like any tourist in Poland!), distracted and happy. I also hadn’t been thinking about my exhibition project for a few days. While we were sitted, you and Charlie talking together, I suddenly came back from my touristic amnesia to think of my curatorial project : working with the first artist that I would meet. Of course, I could choose other people but I didn’t want to take some of my friends, or artists that I knew I would met. My goal was to take someone I don’t know and whose artistic practice is not related to mine. So, as I was thinking of the project, I looked at you (through the light of the candles) and understood that you’d be the artist. I kept it secret for several months and now I’m sharing it with you! Would you agree to be part of this project ?

Of course I imagine that you must feel a bit surprised about this strange invitation but it is very serious and sincere. Actually, I’m very excited to propose this show to an artist that I don’t know, instead of choosing in my network or people whom I follow the work. It deals with the chances of life, with something poetic and ephemeral.

To begin, I think the best thing would be, If you accept it, to talk about what we could do together, and of course to talk about your own practice. I know that we don’t have so much time to work, and maybe you’re really busy for the moment (I could send you this message a few months ago, even If I was a bit scared…), but I hope we’ll make it !

Here is my email address: arnaud.dezoteux@gmail.com

Sincerely,

Arnaud Dezoteux

Mateusz Choróbski :

Dear Arnaud,
Firstly, I have to admit it is the weirdest invitation I have ever got and I love it.
Thank you for that.
I’m all in.

As you mentioned, there is not much time but it is enough to create a good exhibition (with a barbecue of course:) ).
The other thing – around 24 of June I’m going for 2 weeks for another art project in Tokyo. So, if your project is planned for June, then it must happen before 24. 

I have checked the space, it’s very nice. Could you send me photos of the Les Bains Douches from outside as well (maybe there is some kind of the courtyard or backyard?). What kind of building it is? A new one or old one? How the entrance to the gallery looks like? Etc. The context of the space is importance for my realization. 

If you don’t know my practice, then I will send you some materials.
Firstly, my website: http://www.mateuszchorobski.com/ there is no work, only links.
An interview: http://theforumist.com/go-east/
And maybe it is enough for the beginning.

To sum up, let’s do it!

best,
mc