Elodie Denis text for catalogue*

 

A physical obedience of a certain geometry (Nihil Sublime)

 

“I am the the law and you talkin to me.”

 

As Francois Hebert tell us about dreams surrounding the novel Holyoke: “All dreams are a finite process indelibly lodged in reality”. Perhaps we can say the same of works of art… at least those that are worthy of lingering over,… those that in a way make us pause and linger, exactly those that make you question, that is to say, put the viewers off their guard and make them question their relationship with the real. Untitled  (Hex or printing the infernal sentence method) of Thierry Bernard-Gottland, exhibited here, as part of the exhibition Nihil Sublime, is one of these artworks that “resist” (according to the definition of Deleuze for whom T-G-B holds a great affection (1) and who hopes that we will take the time to closely examine…..

 

A cross-examination? The artist recognizes at first glance a specific quality in this work (second stopping-point after the stairs inside the exhibition room) which makes the viewer stop, struck by its black unreal glow; it is the only piece which offers a written message, often underlined, while not avoiding humor, drawing out the importance of the library in his training in Fine Art. “At the beginning I spent about 70% of my time reading, compulsively devouring theoretical texts and philosophical writings, attempting to answer this breathtaking question which caught me off guard, once I had been accepted as a student:  “What am I doing here?”. “What is my role in society as a practicing artist?.” On the other hand, when one knows that one is based from now on in Ho Chi Minh city, in Vietnam, a country where on does not speak the language and gets about on a motorbike one can only imagine criss-crossing the city, struck by the visually fascinating written messages, amid the colors and the chaos of the city – “ The man who passes through forests of symbols” (2)  - pure aesthetic stimulation disconnected from the verbal and conceptual content, from where, perhaps, comes the desire to use this graphic material in a work… Because work on the typography, nervously molded with the help of electrical tape – is undeniably in Hex… But it does not eclipse all of the meaning, as one can witness when one observes a viewer who approaches the imposing and dark force-field in order to discover a black message over a black background.

 

 

The work, let us remember, is made up of two plywood rectangular panels, positioned vertically, facing each other, 244 cm x 122 cm in size and covered by industrial glossy black paint which suggests the luster of vinyl records. The electrician’s tape which we have already mentioned, spell out in bold jittery letters, italicized, almost runic, containing several quotes, over two paragraphs, un-referenced but generally very well known. The left panel starts with “Most poor suckers are starving to death”, (Auntie Mame, 1958) after which follows “Wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothing yet”, (The Jazz Singer 1927) before the iconic “You talking to me?” (Taxi Driver 1976), “ I am the law“, (Judge Dredd, 1995), “I’ll be back 
“(Terminator, 1984) –  film of Mr. Arnold  ‛Governor of California’ Schwarzenegger –, “ Sir, yes sir “ (Full Metal Jacket, 1987), “ You’ve got to ask yourself a question: ‘Do I feel lucky? Well do you punk ? Go ahead, make my day’ (Dirty Harry, 1983), “I see dead people” (The Sixth  Sense, 1999), “Listen to them, children of the night, what music they make” (Poltergeist, 1982), “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate” (Cool Hand Luke, 1967), “Here’s looking at you kid” (Casablanca, 1942). And finally, the beginning of the quote by Auntie Mama, relegated to the bottom of the second panel: “Life is a banquet”, which invites the viewer to start reading again at the beginning (“And most poor suckers are Starving to Death” etc.) creating a circular roundabout of reading which has neither a beginning nor an end.

 

Two rectangular panels placed facing each other barking cult statements (the artist explains having flicked through a compilation,“100 quotes from the most well known films” available on the internet), black on black, all containing a certain connection with authority (which deal with crime films, vigilantes, prison, war, even with a future politician in two of them), or dealing with the occult, in the excerpts from the Sixth Sense or Poltergeist, but it is also another hold over the audience that is being expressed, unequivocally: the supernatural: (a metaphor for all hidden forces? interpolated by the singularity of these two imposing black monoliths, containing scratchings which clearly evoke another cinematographic experience – 2001 A Space Odyssey – the viewer finds him or herself as though “immersed in a clash of  Titans” as Thierry Bernard- Gotteland has recognized and contextualized. A symbolic violence while at the same time stimulating in the rear view does not is not designed to run over the audience (as we shall see, it is not about a humiliation) but to place the viewer right in the middle – both in space and in the reflection of him or herself, in a location that mirrors back a black glossy surface – more to the point, it makes the viewer an investigator into the real and of the relationship with media, icons and screens.

 

A work that is more open than sententious, the title of the installation frees the viewer inside an enclosure with three propositions from which he or she is virtually invited to choose.  The open-ended possibility (“Untitled”) hides in this way the geometric option (“Hex”) as well as a possibility of engaging with the occult: “Printing the infernal sentence method”.  For those who choose the last alternative, the lover of rock music recognises the title of an album of the cult rock group of Dylan Carlson, Earth (3). This “homage” is enriched with one word (“sentence” with its interesting double meaning; in English: “a collection of words”, in French: “a judgment”...and this here when one is speaking of an investigation into the real!) The borrowing from Earth brings us back, opportunistically, to the two central themes of the exhibition. The first is the deconstruction of rock and roll and its romantic myths, with a dismantled electric guitar at the end of the hallway (4) just as Earth has been able to deconstruct the sense of doom with its research into minimalist drone music. The second is the relationship between numbers and the geometry in how it opens into a sacred dimension. T B-G has not left out the opportunity to underline the influence of the writing of Badiou in the montage of Nihil Sublime.  In fact, one could talk of an exhibition embracing the pentagram or the mandala, that is to say of a geometric journey with the aim of an initiation, familiarizing the viewer with the fertile obsessions of the artist and sensitizing him or her to the phenomena of social dogmas and fanaticism.

 

Explanation:

 

Geometric constraint as a metaphor for social dogma.  This in effect is how T B-G justifies the general agency of Nihil Sublime. “In our societies, the impression of being free is a deception, in that one bends oneself constantly to tacit rules, kept inside since childhood”, he explains. “In my exhibition, I wanted to replay that, by constraining the spectator in space with geometric rules of which he is not instantly aware.” By doing this and whether they want it or not, the exhibition of T. B-G divides up the spectators, as in an rite of passage taken by our ancestors: the onlooker, speedily.  will go through the exhibition completely mystified and probably disturbed by a certain strangeness and ambient darkness, whereas the patient visitor and observer, warned by the sub-title (“A Physical Obedience of a Certain Geometry”) could detect the order created by the geometrist. Nihil Sublime and each of its artworks work as a veritable school of the gaze: an invitation to follow the detail, whether it be hidden in a subtitle of a reflection,  to escape the tyranny of appearances (such as the illusion of freedom). In this way, it is for example the detail of our reverberation at the dark surface of “Untitled/Hex” which permits us to grasp all of the conceptual bearing of the work in question: we are reminded in this reflection of how much Hollywood makes up so much of our lives. One identifies oneself in the quotes, we keep them in our memories and reuse some of the tirades. The cinema makes up part of our psychological grammar, social and verbal and we reflect what we have witnessed on the screen as much as it reflects us…less free than one believed.

 

Cinema, geometry but also Rock and Roll: here then are the reasons for being of these two tablets bearing the commandments.  The glossy black which reminds one of vinyl disks, the lettering of the tirades that evokes metal typography (from those that one imitates patiently on the cassette mixes of hard rock, copied and passed around during our college years). The electrical tape taken from roadies and other technicians at rock concerts…. “The authority that is prevalent in these cinematic tirades is also a key feature of rock: it extracts by the amplification and microphone then the emotional response directed by the musician… this demonstration of power interests me” acknowledges T B-G. This dialogue with the rock aesthetic also evokes other contemporary artists: Steven Shearer, Elodie Lesourd, Damien Deroubaix, Steven Parrino, Banks,  Violette or even Claude Lévêque. Only, by wanting to explore the analogy between the experience of the rock concert and that of the contemplation of a work from the plastic arts does one understand that the spectator at the exhibition of T B-G is far too intellectual, much too destabilized and active, to be able to be compared to the experience of a “fan” of rock music squashed by the decibels (or at least the pejorative representation that one can conclude after reading T G-B’s description on the connection of the force of the work of the connection of power of the work during a live presentation.) In fact the spectator of T B-G’s exhibition is not a fan, but an amplifier: it serves, as we have seen to treat the signal, sweeten the metal music or film, however, he does on not hesitate to unravel or pervert them in the blink of an eye. It is impossible to speak of fanatics whoever they are when referring to the world of T B-G. One is more in an aesthetic of amateurs – in the noble sense of the world (people who make work out of love for it. On this subject, le us remember the name of the album of Earth, hex or Printing in the Infernal Method having largely inspired someone in whose work which interests us and was already a homage: a work of chivalry from a true amateur addressed to the work of William Blake. In the same way, the amateur of Earth that is T B-G makes us subtly share his predilections,,, of which the music of the group of Dylan Carson is also a part, just as much as the cinema or the black metal that evokes the typographic work.

 

 

So, when we return to the judicial metaphor which started this contribution; that of art as a trial of the all that is real (sound, cinema, internalized social dogmas…) one cannot and more hold the spectator to the mere role of simple witness of worse, the invited audience.  If the artist is a judge who starts a trial, makes the charges, then the spectator is a juror no less active, responsible also with the task of making sense. Combining the signs and making the meanings and the underlying significations and the sounds – it is this mission which is to make a work of art with a capital A…. This is the one which always resists (Deleuze) but accepts the dialogue and paradoxically, precisely encourages it through its resistances.

 

I am the law and YOU talking to ME… RIGHT!?

 

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1. -“Art is that which Resists” GILLES DELEUZE, “What is the Act of Creation” Paper at the foundation Femis 17/05/1987.

2. - CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, “Correspondance) (fourth poem in Fleurs du Mal)

3. - EARTH, Hex or Printing in the Infernal Method (2005, Southern Lord)

4. -T hierry Bernard-Gotteland, Untitled (Gotterdammerung Chamber Variation Tuned (C.A.G.E.D) 2011