houga houga

Le Houga is a small town, in the french south-west countryside, and the name comes from an old dialect (le gascon) to describe a place planted with ferns. To give the title to this exhibition, the artists remove the capital and duplicate the name: appropriation, repetition, collage, as much important gestures in the practices of Gregory Cuquel & Simon Rayssac. In both works, the question of the game is discussed, the game and the evidence, the hidden and the mark, the movement. La ritournelle, a work of the exhibition, had been overturned: now, by a quick move, the figure in the work is falling and everything is upside down. Paintings and drawings, yes, but here those classical techniques are impregnated with fluxus culture, performative and conceptual arts, with rythms of hard music and a ‘why-not’ attitude. There are foam-expanded paintings and few papers simply hung on (the same) foam panels : it’s playing hooky and school in the garden. Vivement l’Aveyron!* yells Simon and it’s also the houga houga in fact (there are ferns, ticks, a she-wolf, fishes and snails, the chair in the sun, the grid which comes to border a part of the garden, and, a bit further the bridge, the bathers). _____ *Aveyron is the countryside’s retreat of the artist.