“Vampires and Ghosts” by Claude Closky

@Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris
Through July 29th, 2016

Strong exhibition by French artist Claude Closky. The artist digs out even further his palette of possibilities.

We guess that the theme “Vampires and ghosts” could have started almost like a joke, like another challenge to meet but, the challenge has been completed beyond any expectation: the treatment of the artworks made of collages of enigmatic torn photographs -like if they were taken from a crime scene- , the installation in such wide space of exhibition with a lighting focused just on the art, everything is set to let the ghosts appear!

 

Lack of control, giving a chance to chance, arbitrary seriality and the performing of careful classifications of which it is not clear what purpose – if any – they serve are common themes in Closky’s work. Here they meet with the idea of invisible forces controlling chance..forces that have been triggered by the artist, but which were then abandoned to themselves and which we might just as well call algorithms. The artist set the conditions, but does not master the order in which visitors discover the creations nor does he always decide what, exactly, happens in them.

Below the diptych “Mirror with Vampires, Window with Ghost” shows once more the humor of the artist who “represents” the transparency of both vampires and ghosts…