The idea for this exhibition was born almost a year ago and its conception began several months ago, well before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The question arose whether or not to maintain this exhibition as it had been imagined, for fear that it might be seen as an attempt to recuperate recent and sensitive events. The very theme of the exhibition, based both on the female figure of the oracle and on the prediction and signs of a global collapse, must have forced us to question this.
It will probably not be seen as it would have been a few months ago, if recent world events had not taken place. Unable to be suspected of the slightest opportunism and arguing that it is – conversely – hard not to take into account the reality of this dark period, we have chosen to keep this project, as it was originally conceived, also considering that the works it brings together constitute for some the testimonies and the signs of a general and vital awareness that we must develop in the years to come.
With his film The Evil Eye, Clément Cogitore was awarded the prestigious Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2018 by the Centre Pompidou, obtained with the support of the FRAC Auvergne, which was responsible for defending his candidacy. This fruitful collaboration between our institution and the artist now allows the film to appear in our collection, following the acquisition, in 2017, of Indes Galantes.
The Evil Eye is placed here at the heart of the exhibition, its soundtrack crossing all the spaces, in a dialogue with the other works, like a litany presaging the advent of an inevitable end of the world. A poignant elegy borrowing as much from the great myths as from the crowd manipulation methods the most tried by advertising as by propaganda, The Evil Eye calls on the ancient figures of the witch and the oracle to illuminate our time with a light premonitory and fatal.
The Evil Eye is placed here at the heart of the exhibition, its soundtrack crossing all the spaces, in a dialogue with the other works, like a litany presaging the advent of an inevitable end of the world. A poignant elegy borrowing as much from the great myths as from the crowd manipulation methods the most tried by advertising as by propaganda, The Evil Eye calls on the ancient figures of the witch and the oracle to illuminate our time with a light premonitory and fatal.
The evil eye, an archaic figure of anathema, finds its most diverse variations in this exhibition. Drawing on representations rooted in belief and myth, the evil eye is also manifested by the evocation of great historical tragedies – warlike devastation or economic disaster, the collapse of the Twin Towers, racial hatred – and by the omnipresence of enigmatic female figures. , prophetic or threatening who, like the three Fates of Roman mythology, seem to weave the threads of a fatal destiny.
Jean-Charles Vergne
Director of FRAC Auvergne Exhibition curator
Artists:
Caroline Achaintre – Michel Aubry – Jean Baudrillard – Marc Bauer – Carole Benzaken – Christian Boltanski – Miriam Cahn – Katerina Christidi – Clément Cogitore – Gregory Crewdson – Agnès Geoffray with the participation de P J Harvey – Camille Henrot – Fabian Marcaccio – Seamus Murphy – Gerald Petit – Émilie Pitoiset – Éric Poitevin – Şerban Savu – Loredana Sperini – Nancy Spero – Elly Strik – Sandra Vásquez de la Horra
Le Mauvais Oeil
Du 19 septembre 2020 au 10 janvier 2021
FRAC Auvergne
1 rue Barbançon
Clermont-Ferrand – France
