Absense / 7 elements / Seroux & Alex Svi
SUMMARY
Fr / HOME / ARTWORKS /
PORTRAITS / A COLLECTIVE /
A PLURAL IDENTITY / A BOOK /
CONTACT & CRITICS /
PHILOSOPHY /
CONTEMPORARY ARCHIPELAGIC THINKING
The concept of archipelagic thinking is a philosophical metaphor developed by the poet and essayist Édouard Glissant (1928–2011). It proposes a contemporary way of conceiving identity, human relationships, and the structuring of the world. In contrast to the continental, centered, unified, and often hierarchical vision ("systems thinking"), archipelagic thinking values diversity, relationships between multiple entities, and relational aesthetics.
In art, it values co-creation and the encounter of diverse forms rather than a unified, monolithic, and repetitive vision.
IMPLEMENTATION /
A PLURAL
IDENTITY
A RELATIONAL
ESTHETIC
THE ODYSSY
OF THE GAZE
BRIEF PRESENTATION
SEROUX :
SIX HETERONYMS
IN THE FORM OF
A SINGULAR COLLECTIVE
The definition of myself ?
Pasolini replied :
an infinity.
THREE ARTISTS :
SEROUX
ALEX SVI
DAVID REALH
THREE COLLECTIONS :
Zorah SOMEXKI Collection
GHABOR Collection
Paul QWEST Collection
DNA OF THE WORK
These six distinct sensibilities, combined together, constitute the DNA of this artistic adventure. It is Paul Qwest, curator and collector, who ultimately conceives of these "archipelagic" works.
A VISUAL PILPUL
These allow us to perceive, for each subject addressed, what the awareness of our plural identities can broaden within us through this form of visual and philosophical "Pilpul".
DEFINITIONS
An heteronym
A heteronym is a name an author uses to identify one of the sensibilities that constitute a part of their multifaceted identity. Naming it makes it tangible. In literature, one might think, among others, of Fernando Pessoa and Romain Gary.
The pilpul
It's a "sharp debate," a method of reflection based on collective study of the Talmud. This intellectual exercise assumes that the participants' differences and contradictions can only be apparent. Pilpul encourages confronting them by promoting diverse interpretations.
THE ART OF READING IMAGES
The Zohar
The Book of Splendor or "Book of Clarity" in English, was written in 13th-century Spain. The work is dedicated to the art of reading. This method teaches subtle rules ranging from grammar to philology, including wordplay, letter games, and number games. It invites the reader to explore intertextuality in an infinite dance of possible meanings. It creates a joyful polysemy capable of delighting poetic hearts and complex minds.
However, the art of reading the relationships that images produce, regardless of the technique employed, also involves the iridescent prism of multiple, even infinite, interpretations.
THREE MAIN
HETERONYMS
THREE STATES
OF SELF
Psychiatrist Eric Bernstein, founder of transactional analysis around 1960, established a clear distinction between our different "ego states." This allows for a better understanding of the diversity of our relationships and interactions with the world.
Within the collective, these "three states" are distinctly represented by three main heteronyms. Each produces radically different graphic works.
SEROUX
The Adult Self
Rational, logical, and objective, it is characterized by controlled emotions and pragmatic behavior congruent with the reality of the here and now.
ALEX SVI SEROUX
The Parent Self
It questions norms and values, and corresponds to critical thinking and reflective behaviors regarding significant educational and cultural legacies in their subjective complexities.
DAVID REALH
The Child Self
Free and spontaneous, it cultivates imaginations, experiences intense emotions, and embarks on creative impulses, open to exploration without preconceptions.
1 / SEROUX
THE KEYSTONE
The adult state
Painting
Work on paper
Photography
Painting
Work on paper
Photography
2 / Alex SVI
THE TALMUDIC POET
The parent state
Writing and
Collections of questions
The answer is yes.
But what was the question ?
Woody Allen
3 / David REALH
CELEBRATING IMPERFECTION
The child state
Painting
Drawing
Transformed Objects
When a child appears, they are born with all the nuances of the world.
They have their own needs, their own ambitions. It is the child within me who creates me.
Elie Wiesel
TREE ORIGINAL
COLLECTIONS
1 / The SOMEXKI Collection
WORKS WITHOUT ARTIST
Found photographs
that reflect our collective memories.
The ideal reader reads all literature as if it were anonymous.
Alberto Manguel
2 / The GHABOR Collection
DESIRES OF PARRESIA
Photographs
and erotic objects
collected over a lifetime. They bear witness to joyful, totally free, and sometimes unconventional intimate lives.
Beneath all sensual, yet profound, tenderness, lies the enduring presence of danger.
Marcel Proust
3 / The QWEST Collection
A PLURAL
IDENTITY
A RELATIONAL
ESTHETIC
THE ODYSSY
OF THE GAZE
1 / A PLURAL
IDENTITY
Painting, composing, writing: exploring myself.
Therein lies the adventure of being alive.
Henri Michaux
BUT REALLY: "THAT"!?
It isn't you !
Each of us has heard this phrase at one time or another, when we were simply unexpected in the eyes of others. So?
What do we do with this "it"? do we do with all our dormant potential, with our diverse identities, including those that are repressed, denied, or even excluded by social conformity in some?
What do we do with what isn't in line, fixed, unique, clear, acceptable, and how do we broaden the framework of preconceived ideas, that of our supposedly monolithic and definable identity?
FERNANDO PESSOA
ROMAIN GARY
Finally, how do we translate our diverse desires, our yearning for elsewhere, our contradictions, our inconsistencies that nonetheless also constitute who we are?
The Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa, or Romain Gary alias Emile Ajar, Roman Kacew, Fosco Sinibaldi, Shatan Bogat, and others have succeeded.
Translating these diverse sensibilities is at the heart of this work.
FOUR BOOKS
ABOUT THE QUESTION
Claude Arnaud
Elisa Brune & Paul Qwest
Delphine Horvilleur
Pierre Bayard
2 / A RELATIONAL
ESTHETIC
THE UNIQUENESS
OF THE COLLECTIVE
It's Paul Qwest who ultimately brought together various works that reflected the sensibilities of a single individual. This multiplied the perspectives on each subject addressed and allowed for the creation of diverse works based on the relationships between drawing, questioning, photography, painting, and so on.
THE ART OF RELATIONSHIP
"Relational Aesthetics" is the title of the seminal essay by Nicolas Bourriaud published in the 1990s. Here, a different relational mode than the one Bourriaud conceives of emerges in these pages. If "Art is a state of encounter," then in this case, it is the various elements of each work that meet and question the viewer.
THE POLYPHONY
OF POSSIBLE SENSES
Meaning emerges from this particular arrangement. The relationships we weave between its different elements create a network of links within us, of open reflections, of personal and shifting sensations. Each viewer will see differently what is presented as common to all.
IN PHILOSOPHY
Doesn't reflection resemble this when it comes to examining our scattered thoughts in order to establish meaningful connections between them? Henri Bergson, upon discovering the films of his time and the art of montage, spoke of the "cinema of thought."
Here we are.
3 / THE ODYSSY
OF THE GAZE
A BOOK
OUR LIVES ?
In ancient Hebrew, the word for life
does not exist in the singular.
We all have a family life, another with friends, a social life, a medical life, an emotional life, an intimate life, a professional life, a cultural life, an imaginary life, a past, a present, a future life, and so on... And we mortals glide effortlessly, like skaters on ice, from one to the other without any interruption.
To reduce a word to one of its possible meanings is to risk insignificance.
To reduce a person to a single aspect of their identity is indecent.
Similarly, to reduce one's life to a single aspect and to endlessly repeat a single facet of one's sensitivity is to obscure the diversity of one's being.
This work embraces the plurality of our lives so that an art of combining the particular with the infinite may take shape within each of us.
The spirit that permeates this research
was translated into a book entitled:
"Our Lives as Event"
co-authored by Elisa Brune and Paul Qwest,
published in Paris by Odile Jacob in 2019.
The book's literary form is directly inspired by the visual form of the work presented here.
Understanding
A BOOK - A PHILOSOPHY / page here
A CHORAL WORK
EXAMPLE
ESCAPE
15 elements
Séroux
8 watercolors on paper 30 / 40
2012 New York
Collection Somexki
1 photograph
Alex Svi
1 question
Séroux
1 photograph
2016 Montreal
David Realh
4 ink on paper
RECENT
WORKS
ART
2 elements
Seroux
1 painting
2016 - 2020
The Somexki Collection
1 photograph
WIND / Magellan
6 elements
Somexki Collection
1 photograph
Alex Svi
1 question
Seroux
4 acrylic on paper 70/50
Patagonia / Chile
