Agnès b. presents the sixth season of its collection at La Fab. dedicated to the Langage du Corps (Body Language).
Even before movements lead to a gesture or a mime, sometimes even before any intention of signifying anything whatsoever, in feverish tension or abandoned at rest, on the stage of a theater or unmasked by death, the body speaks without ever interrupting itself. The silence of the image is filled with a verb declined at all times: so, the memory with which the body is endowed recomposes the perpetual present to which it seems dedicated. — from the beginning to its end, in its silhouette and its features, a body is already a whole story.
“The narrow stitching of mind and body communicating their fortunes to each other”, wrote Montaigne, generates a language that is not easily translatable (the signs disappear in the very movement that produces them), but remains relevant , if not exact — an intuitively reinvented Esperanto which, in terms of grammatical rules, knows only the limits of bones and muscles. Diffused in the flesh as it is, resistant to any definitive conclusion, its speech lends itself to nuances and details that no science could describe and reason: body language is all art. The first, and the model of all the others, according to which the actor like the sculptor, the painter like the poet and the musician like the dancer form the requirements of their practice.
The photographer demands the pose (Andy Warhol, Gilbert and George, Seydou Keïta), suggests postures (Herbert List, André de Dienes), surprises an uncertain moment (Nan Goldin, Martin Parr, Martine Barrat), or frames the detail of an attitude (Man Ray, Harmony Korine,…). Staged according to more or less restrictive directives (Agnès Varda, Hervé Guibert, Denis Darzacq), the body is also part of the space of suspended narratives. — The draftsman and the painter (Frédéric Bruly-Bouabré, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mike Lash, Bangala) re-elaborate the body according to the imaginary language they have heard it express.
The body speaks explicitly and urgently, or approximately and allusively. Whatever misunderstandings are feared, it makes himself heard. He speaks and expresses himself in all tones – we cannot forget that he is all ears, that he hears and understands what is intended for him as well as what seems to escape him. — A rediscovered kiss (Vincent Michéa): body language is reciprocity itself.
Art historian and critic Alain Cueff has devoted an exhibition (“Le Grand Monde d’Andy Warhol”) and a book (“Warhol à son image”) to Andy Warhol. Editions Les Belles Lettres published this year his essay Ciels d’Amérique, 1801-2001.
The artists
AGNÈS VARDA, BERENICE ABBOTT, MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO, DIANE ARBUS,
HÉLÈNE BAMBERGER, JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT, OLIVIA BEE,
ERNEST J. BELLOCQ, THIBAUT BOUEDJORO,
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BOURCART, FRÉDÉRIC BRULY BOUABRÉ,
FRÉDÉRIC BUCKHIESTER,
KENNETH CAPPELLO & BRIAN DEGRAW, HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON,
RAYMOND CAUCHETIER, CDX,
CAROLINE CHAMPETIER, ROMAN CIESLEWICZ, LARRY CLARK,
DENIS DARZACQ,
MARIE-LAURE DE DECKER, ANDRÉ DE DIENES,
NIKI DE SAINT PHALLE, WILLIAM EGGLESTON, TRACEY EMIN, VINCENT GALLO, GILBERT & GEORGE, NAN GOLDIN, DOUGLAS GORDON, LUCIEN HERVÉ,
PETER HUJAR, SEYDOU KEÏTA, HARMONY KORINE, GABRIEL KURI, MIKE LASH, HERBERT LIST, MADE IN ERIC, MAN RAY,
RYAN MCGINLEY, JONAS MEKAS, VINCENT MICHÉA, CHAD MOORE.
Curator : agnès b.
Collection agnès b. : Le Langage du Corps
June 9 – October 22, 2023
La Fab.
Place Jean-Michel Basquiat
Paris 13e
www.la-fab.com
www.agnesb.fr
