Paroles, Paroles

Language, that is, the ability to express oneself and communicate, reflects the political, social and technological changes of our age. Our words, accents and expressions are sites of freedoms or constraints, which are revealed in the hybridization, transformation and adaptation of languages. Paroles, Paroles brings together six artists, performers and poets – including a duo – whose artworks explore language in the visual arts, between written and oral language. The exhibition visual, by graphic designer Garine Gokceyan, reveals that certain discourses are rendered palatable in public. They are compared to women’s hair, traditionally destined to be disciplined. In the former synagogue of Delme, as for the works by Costanza Candeloro, Dorota Gawęda et Eglė Kulbokaitė, Marianne Mispelaëre, Hussein Nassereddine and Patrizia Vicinelli, they invoke diverse language practices through which discourse oscillates between plurilingualism and poetic language; between visual, stylised and olfactive forms. Added to this is the speech that circulates, that of the discussions between the public and the mediators at the art centre. While it is not a new subject in the visual arts, language is expressed today through close ties with literature, poetry and other forms of discourse. Here, the words of the past help to evoke contemporary issues or, on the contrary, keep them at bay. Readings, performances, interviews – whether they effectively take place or are simply imagined – as well as visual poetry, are used to diversify language. They create a discrepancy with a logic of “foreshadowing effects” that confine the meaning of the words: magical words, tactical words that ring false, that seduce more than they say. This exhibition is supported by ProHelvetia.