What happens when we cry? at Galerie Derouillon

Artists: Mathilde Albouy, Miriam Cahn, Jina Khayyer, Keunmin Lee, Armineh Negahdari, Bri Williams

Exhibition title: What happens when we cry?

Curated by: Marion Coindeau

Venue: Galerie Derouillon, Paris, France

Date: May 16 – June 29, 2024

Photography: Grégory Copitet / all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Galerie Derouillon, Paris

Galerie Derouillon is pleased to present its next group exhibition “What happens when we cry?” curated by Marion Coindeau with the participation of:

Mathilde Albouy
Miriam Cahn
Jina Khayyer
Keunmin Lee
Armineh Negahdari
Bri Williams

The exhibition brings together a group of contemporary artists from diverse backgrounds and scenes, all of whom focus their practice on the transformation of violence in political, spiritual and individual contexts. Before any projection of an anguished, fantasized or hoped-for future, the focus here is on capturing the moment when we cross/are crossed by violence and the emotions it carries.

At a time when it overflows our daily lives, when its relentless representation attempts to account for our cruelty – barbarism or indifference – we need to strip it bare: to move away from an explicit, figurative image, and to refuse a flashy or even seductive use of violence or suffering. We’re not looking for an end in its encounter – a form – but a process of transformation – a force. The artists involved think of vulnerability as a collective reality and propose a repertoire of gestures preferring embodiment to representation, in order to approach what runs through us.

Our tears function as portals. When our eyes are misty, the boundaries between our inner and outer selves become porous, the rational self is dissolved by our emotions, and we are then more likely to relate to others and shift our point of view. The tears initially envisaged are those of the “constructive and salutary rage” that animates the theorist and activist of African-American feminism bell hooks, that we feel in our flesh and that transforms us. This rage, whose manifestations are examined in the exhibition, is rooted in a concrete post-colonial context of struggle against racism and misogyny. Violence passes through bodies, language and voice, and takes hold of our representations.

More intimately, what does the experience of this violence do to us? What does it open up?

-Marion Coindeau