Best known for his Cellules (Cells) – geometric, architectural constructions painted in immaculate white which the artist conceived and constructed to live in – Absalon’s practice has often been considered part of a genealogy of avantgardes, a continuation of abstract radicalism, both generic and idealised, disconnected from worldly contingencies. Without wanting to overlook the harmony between Absalon’s work and a certain historic teleology, this exhibition interrogates intent and meaning by proposing a more subjective, political and embodied approach.

From a large selection of his drawings, models, sculptures, maps and built-to-scale prototypes, we attempt to show how Absalon’s work – whose linear trajectory ought to have led to a life-long project that would have surpassed the field of art – can be articulated around unique new ways of thinking. In retrospect, beneath the surface-level minimalism of his works, Absalon penetrated a multitude of social, affective and psychological questions all of which concern the emancipation of a physical body from a political body. His Cellules are less claustrophobic or deductive than they are built-to-scale mental and physical spaces: both protected and connected. They may almost be seen as bio-parasitical devices that function as a place for living and care in an environment considered by the artist as the sum of various agendas and determinants set by a culture his work would allow him to liberate himself from. They may almost be seen as bio-parasitical devices that function as a place for living and care in an environment considered by the artist as the sum of various agendas and determinants set by a culture his work would allow him to liberate himself from.

As a way of providing comparisons with this concrete utopia, and as part of a logic which is less dialectical than it is an opening of possibilities, we have chosen works by eight artists (Alain Buffard, Dora García, Robert Gober, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Marie-Ange Guilleminot, Mona Hatoum, Laura Lamiel, Myriam Mihindou) that we believe will generate multiple perspectives. Dissimulated amongst Absalon’s œuvre, these works should be viewed as couriers that allow for the transmission of cultural, spiritual, identarian, poetic and sentimental questions that go beyond Absalon’s primary monolithic and often impenetrable approach. This programme places Absalon’s searing career retrospectively: not within the hypothetical spirit of his time – the 1990s – but rather as part of a network of political, formal and affective resonances whose echoes can still be heard today.

The reconsideration of Absalon’s work almost thirty years after his death necessitates a reflection of his singularity as well as his proximity to a certain generation of artists that emerged onto the international stage at the turn of the nineties. Absalon’s work – extended entirely towards a will to live and on his own terms – should be situated with those artists who, particularly in the context of the fight against AIDS, put aside any prevarication which had once separated activism from artistic practice in order to immerse themselves in practices motivated by the urgency and imperative necessity to exist and bear witness to this existence. These are embodied denunciations of mechanisms of oppression and determinism, made into performances and physically “incorporated”, that places Absalon’s searing career retrospectively: not within the hypothetical spirit of his time – the 1990s – but rather as part of a network of political, formal and affective resonances whose echoes can still be heard today.

Curators: Guillaume Désanges and François Piron

An exhibition co-produced with the Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM)
This exhibition is recognized as being of national interestby the Ministry of Culture/Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs. As such, it receives exceptional financial supportfrom the State.
With the support of the Institut français à Paris, the Ville de Bordeaux and the  Bordeaux Métropole.