Lucie Duval

Vernissage, November 5, from 4 p.m. at Galerie Isabelle Gounod

“I drew a parallel between ‘l’engagement’ [commitment] and ‘langage ment’ [language lies] or, I should say, I oppose ‘l’engagement’ and ‘langage ment’. 

Using fairly large black and white digital prints of skies, I stencil out pastel commitments that have not been kept: the Kyoto Protocol, Sarkozy’s presidential speech, the sacrament of marriage, etc. 

After the ‘commitment’ has been written out on the photograph, by rubbing out certain letters, by blurring them, I change the text, and thus the nature of said commitment (unkept), into something derisory. Ironically one could think that an unkept commitment is the equivalent of ‘paroles en l’air’ [airy promises, literally ‘words in the sky’], hence the erased letters against a background of sky that change into clouds. Calling the shots with airy promises! It’s also saying that only actions bind us.

The erased letters are found on the floor, cut out of black granite. Does, despite everything, the weight of words exist?” Lucie Duval, 2011

Galerie Isabelle Gounod, 13 rue Chapon, 75003 Paris