Pierre Ardouvin's 'Helpless' at CRAC de Sète

The CRAC de Sète presents Pierre Ardouvin's solo exhibition 'Helpless' from June 28 to September 22, 2013. The show features new installations alongside older works reinterpreted in the southern context. Upon entry, a dark velvet curtain titled 'Helpless' studded with rhinestones evokes a starry night and reveals a surprised fox. Ardouvin, born in 1955, explores childhood memories not autobiographically but as collective memory. The exhibition references Neil Young's ballad and features Dalida's voice accompanying 'Marcel' (2007), originally created for the Marcel Duchamp Prize. Curator Noëlle Tissier selected works that resonate with Sète's sociology and geography facing North Africa, such as postcards of idyllic places and cheap blankets highlighting precarious migrations. Ardouvin draws from low culture, citing influences Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, and Jim Shaw discovered at Galeries Hussenot and Air de Paris. 'La Nuit je mens' (2013) presents taxidermied birds that cannot coexist, with harsh lighting evoking a prison. 'La Roue de la Fortune' at ground floor, visible from the first floor, is a wheel stripped of inscriptions, spinning to a sad clown's musical saw before white plastic chairs, symbolizing broken dreams. Ardouvin combines seduction with a critical view of harsh reality.