CAC Brétigny

“lunulae”
Cycle of exhibitions and residencies
Curator: Thomas Maestro

“lunulae #3”
Graphic and sound installation by Victor Gogly at the Marie Curie library in Saint-Michel-sur-Orge

23.03—06.04.24
Open during library opening hours.

When we go through the doors of the exhibition room at the Saint-Michel-sur-Orge library, we find ourselves  immersed in a half-light, as if inside a mysterious cave. The space rings with calm music. It was composed by Victor Gogly, who was invited to take part in CAC Brétigny’s off-site exhibition cycle “lunulae”. The artist works in several different mediums: painting, sculpture, installation, publishing and, finally, music, which links them all. Through music, Victor Gogly brings to life a meditative world populated by ghosts and larvae, ruins and roots, oil and mud. The sound we hear is a slow harmonic variation composed on guitar, enriched by effects and sound recordings. He invites us to take our time listening, to pay close attention to the slightest change in and outside of us.

On the first floor of the building, we discover a series of display cases that the artist has filled with models. In them, we see homes and oil wells, but the scene seems to have been abandoned so long ago that it has begun to disappear beneath a strange surface. These layers seem to cover natural (branches, vegetation) and artificial (manufactured metallic parts) elements. As in his sound work, Victor Gogly gives us a glimpse of an environment that is damaged yet very much alive. It could be a world abandoned by humans, its ruins digested by other forms of life. At the back of the display cases, images evoke bodies: could they be spirits who inhabit this desolate landscape?

Further on, in another display case, one large book made out of fabric and another printed on paper. The artist sees the biggest of the two as a kind of “geological codex”. Traditionally, codices are precious books that hold ancient and secret knowledge that can help decrypt the world's most complex questions. This one contains images that look like they could have been taken from an archaeological report. It shows insects imprisoned in pieces of amber. For Victor Gogly, ancient, buried things, whether mineral or organic, are never really dead. Instead, they become part of a long cycle during which life never ceases to transform itself.
The second book shows us other kinds of images: illustrations of bones, fauna, damaged architecture, science-fiction cities, machines, swamps, bark and roots… Occasionally, one of the artist’s drawings appears among these different elements in ghostly compositions where hazy bodies mix with each other, becoming smoke or buried filaments… This book demonstrates the constant research that the artist conducts by observing and exploring the world around him. This consideration allows him to reflect on his place in the world, how he influences it, the phenomena that have taken place in it and those that might still yet, as well as the fragility of existence.

 

After studying at different art schools (ESADHaR Le Havre and Rouen), Thomas Maestro chose to bring a curatorial dimension into his artistic practice. He trained through a master’s degree in exhibition curation (Sorbonne Université) and is a member of the collective Champs magnétiques. With this group, he co-constructed the cycles of exhibitions “Des soleils encore verts” (2021) and “Le reseau des murmures” (2023-2024). He has also worked as an associate curator and project manager at Cneai (Centre National Édition Art Image) and was artistic and curatorial assistant to Daniel Purroy in Vitry-sur-Seine (artist and former artistic director of the Galerie Municipale Jean-Collet). He is also a member of the artistic and curatorial duo Éléments partout, co-founded in 2020 with his collaborator Agathe Schneider. He is interested in secrets, shifts in reality, ruins and shacks, in what is barely visible but very much present. Transmission, as a vector for collective movements, is at the heart of his aspirations.

Victor Gogly (born 1994) lives and works in Vantaa, Finland. A graduate of the École Supérieure d’Art et Design Le Havre-Rouen, the artist and musician produces pieces that question humanity’s relationship with the soil and living things. His work was shown at Jardin du Crépuscule in Montréal in 2021 and at Beaux-Arts de Paris the following year.