L'Exil at Galerie Backslash: A Journey from Civilization to Nature

Curated by Gaël Charbeau, the exhibition 'L'Exil' at Galerie Backslash in Paris ran from November 19 to December 22, 2011. Inspired by Albert Camus's short story 'The Adulterous Woman' from 'Exile and the Kingdom', the show guides visitors from civilization to nature, from dusk to night. Charbeau, who previously curated 'Rituels' at Fondation Ricard in 2011, pays homage to Romanticism and painting. The first room features paintings by Thomas Lévy-Lasne depicting party scenes from unexpected angles, suggesting wandering gazes and thoughts. Further in, a small oil painting by Aurore Pallet shows an empty chalet interior with a window revealing an anguishing, tropical-like vegetation that seems to have overtaken the landscape. The exhibition then evokes a nature inhabited by mysterious beings. On a large blackboard, Markus Hansen has drawn an abandoned house in the forest, like a childhood cabin collapsed under the weight of memories. Blacks and light make barely perceptible forms vibrate in Alex Pou's Bic pen drawings on newspaper scraps. Finally, Jenny Bourassin's painted tornadoes form the climax of this walk, just before a video by Eléonore Saintagnan composed of excerpts from the animated film 'Alice in Wonderland', interspersed with images of Jacques Lacan's seminars where he exclaims: 'Can you support this culture?'