Nothing Recedes Like Failure at Mortadelle

Artists: Mimosa Echard, Kim Farkas, Gabriel Méo, Bryan Morello, Natalia Rolon Clara Stengel, Naoki Sutter-Shudo

Exhibition title: Nothing Recedes Like Failure

Curated by: Ana Iwataki and Marion Vasseur Raluy

Venue: Mortadelle, Arles, France

Date: July 9 – September 3, 2016

Photography: Victor Jaget, all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Mortadelle, Arles

“…sometimes we view success as finished perfection and sometimes as the perfectibility of growth.” Joel Fisher

Nothing recedes like failure or everything resists it. The artist in his room, rejected by the world, tirelessly painting the same painting. Always failing at doing the left eye. Too big, shiny. Not the right color. This brown’s too dark and this red too brown for the whole to come together. He leaves an emptiness to replace the mistake. And it’s the mistake that makes the painting. Today nothing is finished, everything indulged. No room for errors, no room for the sacred. The possibility of failure is a weakness and a tight interstice where fraud is possible, where error is a decision. Failure is there. On the face of a young man who no longer is. On the painting that overflows its edges. On a too brilliant varnish. On a too taut frame. Impossible to distinguish the finished from the unfinished, the successful from the not. The critic quiets down. The artist closes his mouth. They applaud feebly or yell too loudly in order to be believed. Suspend the judgement of the other, make them mute in this desert of the inbetween. It’s not to be done or redone. Thundering silence, the artworks are silent as a grave. And if that shuts you up, maybe we’ll have gotten somewhere.

Mimosa Echard, Untitled, 2016
Wax, pharmaceutical box, eyeshadow, reishi, eggshell, bee, maple key, yarrow, everlasting, packaging, 9 x 21,5 x 13 cm

Kim Farkas, 16-9 (jig), 2016
Tinted lacquer and enamel on wood, aluminum tubes, various plastics and resins, 64 x 50 x 12 cm

Kim Farkas, 16-10 (jig), 2016
Tinted lacquer and enamel on wood, aluminum tubes, various plastics and resins, 71 x 38 x 96 cm

Gabriel Méo, La zone #10, 2016
Ceramics, rug

Gabriel Méo, Border #7, 2016
Cloth, t-shirts, acrylic paint

Gabriel Méo, La zone #10, 2016
Ceramics, rug

Bryan Morello, SandBox Andy, 2015
Wire, string, water, plastic, hook, wood, flower, chain, weights, pebbles, India ink, variable dimensions

Natalia Rolon, Amateur Dramatics (Atelier), 2016
Oil on canvas, 72 x 52 cm

Natalia Rolon, Master and Servant, 2016
Linocut on cloth, lightbox, 250 x 105 cm

Natalia Rolon, Amateur Dramatics (Oasis), 2016
Oil on canvas, 72 x 52 cm

Clara Stengel, D’après Paulin
Wood, fabric, aerosol paint, magazine, 204 x 65 cm

Naoki Sutter-Shudo, Papa, 2006-2016
Digital print, artist frame, 41 x 47cm

Naoki Sutter-Shudo, Untitled (RIP), 2006-2016
Magazine page, artist frame, 37 x 44cm

Naoki Sutter-Shudo, Dog on Izod on Cesca, 2016
Digital print, artist frame, 36 x 44cm

Naoki Sutter-Shudo, Guillaume Maraud wearing my clothes (pants by Gosha Rubchinskiy, turtleneck and cardigan my grandmother’s, coat by Christian Dior, shoes by Comme des Garçons Homme Plus), Paris, May 2015, 2016
Digital print, artist frame, 36 x 44cm

Naoki Sutter-Shudo, Untitled (Ermenegildo Zegna F/W 16/17), 2016
Newspaper cutout, artist frame, 41 x 47cm

Naoki Sutter-Shudo, Untitled (Pain Poilâne, rillettes pur porc, cornichons), 2016
Digital print, artist frame, 41x47cm