Philippe Parreno
Opening 4 March | Pinault Collection at The Bourse de Commerce, Paris
“A contemporary is someone who, in taking a look at his era, surveys the shadows instead of the lights. All times are dark for those who experience their contemporaneity. Thus, a contemporary is someone who knows how to see this darkness, who is able to write by dipping his pen in the darkness of the present”. — Giorgio Agamben
Using the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s thoughts as a starting point, the exhibition "Clair-obscur" takes its title from the famous technique of chiaroscuro that first emerged in Mannerist and Baroque paintings in the sixteenth century, most notably in the works of Caravaggio, who intensified its use, plunging the earthly world into a deep darkness penetrated by rays of light that heighten the sense of dramatic tension and the spiritual questions underlying his paintings. "Clair-obscur" explores the legacy of chiaroscuro as it resonates in the present day. The Bourse de Commerce has been transformed into a luminous and crepuscular landscape, offering visitors a sensory experience in which the visible meets the invisible.
Philippe Parreno, who reinterprets the black paintings of the Quinta del Sordo by candlelight, reminds us how much this alchemical cycle opened the floodgates of our modern sensibility. Chiaroscuro thus emerges as a renewed visual and symbolic language, a narrative device, and a philosophical principle. It expresses the materiality of light and the shadow areas of our subconscious, thus transforming our sense of the visible and the invisible.