Etienne Chambaud's 'Contre-histoire de la séparation' at Vassivière

Etienne Chambaud's exhibition 'Contre-histoire de la séparation' at the Centre international d'art et du paysage on Vassivière Island (14 Nov 2010 – 20 Feb 2011) presents a counter-narrative linking the guillotine and the public museum. The show's centerpiece is a 54-minute film co-authored with Vincent Normand that traces a 'beheaded museum' through historical coincidences: the simultaneous invention of the guillotine and the public museum in the late 18th century, and the last execution by guillotine in 1977 coinciding with the opening of the Centre Pompidou. The film uses layered transparent celluloids and archival visuals manipulated by hands, with a voice-over invoking Duchamp's 'celibate machines'. In the gallery, Chambaud materializes absence: a 'Visit to the Museum' presents only mute marble plaques, while suspended dead bodies and decapitated stones pierce Aldo Rossi's architecture. A neon erasure and a paralyzed mobile in the lighthouse complete the installation. The work draws on Duchamp's readymade logic, emphasizing conceptual over retinal experience. Chambaud's practice destabilizes visibility and legibility, reanimating avant-garde strategies with irony.