What’s Up Doc? at New Galerie

Artists: Darja Bajagić, Hans Bellmer, Dora Budor, Claude Cahun, Max Ernst, Cédric Fargues, Adam Gordon, Meret Oppenheim, Mark Prent, Sean Raspet, Michael Salerno, Aguirre Schwarz, Li Shurui, Peter Sotos, Jasper Spicero, Artie Vierkant

Exhibition title: What’s Up Doc?

Curated by: Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou

Venue: New Galerie, Paris, France

Date: November 23 – December 26, 2017

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and New Galerie, Paris

What’s Up Doc? is a mental map of New Galerie, an attempt to tear the walls of rue Borda limb from limb and reveal its internal organs. Behind the fog, the thick layer of grease, we invite you to touch the still burning trauma of its owners. We want to see the superstructure, the discursive conditions (bye) making this anomalous cradle possible. We want nothing less than to identify the first show of psychological institutional criticism (Psycho Institutional Critique).

1816 was a year without summer. Following the eruption of the Tambora volcano, the world was ravaged by ash-laden winds. Disasters, wars and famines were the results of this long-repressed purulence. 1816 was in many ways a miserable year. It was during a particularly rainy July, following the successive loss of her children, that Mary Shelley created the character of Doctor Frankenstein. Perhaps the latter could have well sat down in a lounge chair that the Jacques Lacan on rue de Lille would not have rejected. Imperturbable, this creation of Olivier Mourgue, father of the padded steel chairs in 2001, A Space Odyssey, is the perfect seat for the Cassandras. Thwarted receptacle, shortwinded grim reaper, it is dust on the chest of drawers. Virilio loved accidents and twilight time, John Hejduk suicidal buildings, Jean-Paul Getty Hadrian’s villa. As for us, we love Dora Budor. No more classes, no more God, no more subject matter, the trinity of metastasized tumors can continue. The body is worried, like Ted Pikul in eXistenZ. A flayed Hollywood character, a carbonized concretion of a “big drop”, For Harry (Mark Prent, 1984) is a cataleptic bastard in his formal evening tuxedo, the renegade post situ of Rodez’s asylum where Antonin Artaud was imprisoned. What is this face with patent bruises? “I’m very worried about my body.” Nearby, the closet is sealed, shutting out the muted sound of beating hearts, waving under its mandibles unresolved early childhood affairs. Department of Health and Human Services. What happened near the closet? Little children wander from hearth to hearth in rooms so vast that their footsteps echo in the bedroom of a prognathous Sandman. Again, no one is responsible for opening the box. Dr. Frankenstein, are you there under the paint of the hospitals?

Sugar in contact with the flesh promotes the proliferation of bacteria. Even marked by the sacred seal of an exegesis, we rot with a disconcerting humility. Job would not have wanted anything to do with us. In the basement, a homonym (Henry) is placed on the throne smearing the gallery wall with all his arrogance. An anonymous vacuum cleaner and self-advocate, he is the passive witness of shattered bodies. Henry, a portrait of a serial killer. A troubled observer, he feigns pain. Careful preparation for mass shootings? Scouting out places? Tailing someone? Tribute Marches? The trilogy of glaciation. In the last room all the paper archives of Peter Sotos are displayed. Falaka. Reconstructing crimes, exploring the limits of voyeurism and exhibitionism, the salient and the hidden, the aesthetics of a secret door and solitary confinement, networking the stridencies of this program, ignoring ambulances are valueless missions. We do not believe in harmless gallery owners. The exhibition responds to simple questions with convoluted hypotheses, watered-down actions (from Pliny the Elder to Jil Sander), post-oedipal associations. Yes, it’s complicated, what’s up doc?

-Pierre-Alexandre Mateos & Charles Teyssou

Aguirre Schwarz, That’s all folks!, 2017, Road paint, pure pigment and synthetic resin on metal shutter

What’s Up Doc?, 2017, exhibition view, New Galerie, Paris

Jasper Spicero, LEFT ARM TEN, 2017, Medical furniture, 3d printed plastic, poultry scissors, fabric dye, button, paper, interior wall paint, marbles, miniature pool balls, silk rope, stylus pens

Meret Oppenheim: Affiche avant la lettre, exposition à la galerie Claude Givaudan, 1969, Framed poster

Mark Prent, For Harry, 1984, Plastic and fiberglass, canvas, steel cable, small steel rings, and steel clips

Sean Raspet, 2014, From left to right: PHANTOM RINGTONE 8:11, CCCCCCCC=O, CCCCCCC(=O)C, CCCCCCCCCCC=O, CCCCCCCCCC(=O)C, 2014, Mixture of ketones and aldehydes in propylene glycol, 5 litres of the formulation displayed; FRUITY, COC(=O), CCCOC(=O), CCCCOC(=O), COC(=O)C, CCOC(=O)C, CCCOC(=O)C, COC(=O)CC, CCOC(=O)CC, CCCOC(=O)CC, COC(=O)CCC, CCOC(=O)CCC, CCCOC(=O)CCC, CCCCOC(=O)CCC, 2014, Mixture of 13 different esters in propylene glycol, 5 litres of the formulation displayed; ETHEREAL, COC(=O), CCOC(=O), COC(=O)C, CCOC(=O)C, CCCCOC(=O)C, COC(=O)CCC, 2014, Mixture of 6 different esters in propylene glycol, 5 litres of the formulation displayed

What’s Up Doc?, 2017, exhibition view, New Galerie, Paris

Hans Bellmer, Portrait d’Henri Michaux, 1942, Drawing on paper

Max Ernst, L’esprit de locarno, 1929, Collage

What’s Up Doc?, 2017, exhibition view, New Galerie, Paris

Li Shurui, Wave no. 13, 2017, Acrylic on canvas

Li Shurui, Wave no. 12, 2017, Acrylic on canvas

Li Shurui, Wave no. 11, 2017, Acrylic on canvas

Artie vierkant, Plastic Universal, 2017, Mirror, flatscreen, video 8m 20s

Claude Cahun, Objet sous globe de verre, 1936, Framed photograph

What’s Up Doc?, 2017, exhibition view, New Galerie, Paris

Cédric Fargues, Henry’s tribute & tout est aspiré, 2014-2017, Printed wallpaper, Print on canvas

Cédric Fargues, Tout est aspiré, 2017, Print on canvas

Michael Salerno, Untitled, 2015, Collage

Michael Salerno, Untitled, 2016, Collage

Michael Salerno, Untitled, 2015, Collage

What’s Up Doc?, 2017, exhibition view, New Galerie, Paris

Michael Salerno, Untitled, 2015, Collage

What’s Up Doc?, 2017, exhibition view, New Galerie, Paris

Darja Bajagić, Brittanee Drexel ft. Pierrot (Smile), 2017, Acrylic paint and UV print on canvas, aluminum frame

Peter Sotos, Holly and Jessica (from the Archives of Peter Sotos), Selection from the archives of Peter Sotos & Buyer’s Market, 1977 – ongoing, 1992, Archival material, Courtesy of Laurence Viallet, Sound, 1h 01m 46s