CAC Brétigny

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

“lunulae #4”
With Ethan Assouline, Célia Boulesteix, Collectif Grapain, Andréa Spartà, Sandar Tun Tun & Ife Day, Xolo Cuintle

Espace de la Croix Louis in Brétigny-sur-Orge
25.05—06.07.24
Open from Tuesday to Saturday, 2pm–6pm.

This final exhibition in the “lunulae” cycle is just on the surface of things, where we can make out the traces of buried secrets. We explore different zones (private, political, inhabited, deserted or haunted). Spaces with hazy borders, calling on us to reconsider our relationship with time.

The wandering begins with the duo Xolo Cuintle. Romy Texier and Valentin Vie Binet have created an architectural model of the exhibition space. But in their version, the floor is made up of furrows, evoking the Essonne region’s agricultural history, the earth of which has been replaced by cement powder. We are thrust into an uncertain and desert-like geological era, formed out of sedimentary layers of our construction materials. The artists seek to disrupt the perception of time, giving us a glimpse of both a post-human future and a relatively recent past.
This mix of temporalities is also present in the collective Grapain’s work. Through their film Caresser au lance flammes, Maéva and Arnaud Grapain take us on a journey through ruins bathed in the light of a dying sun. These desolate landscapes might bring to mind a potential future or the chaos that came before, billions of years ago. Elsewhere, the installation Bord de route creates a threshold between nature and architecture. From a dilapidated wall appears stone wool and silkscreens of plants printed in engine oil that fade over time. Together these elements remind us of the transcience of people and things.
This impression of being caught between several existences can also be found in Sandar Tun Tun and Ife Day’s collaboration. They present a curtain of pearls that seems to have passed through fire and a burnt gateway on which various damaged objects are hung. For the artists, these two passageways evoke the permanent state of emergency we must all live through and which forces us to oscillate between desire and anxiety. They are joined by a sound installation that reveals itself through clues, both eloquent or more discreet. The exhibition space is haunted by traces of stories and music, resonating with the work of the other artists and with its visitors.
Ethan Assouline’s work also discreetly punctuates the exhibition. In his drawings and collages, we can make out absent silhouettes and fragments of images. Their fragility evokes the vulnerability of people subject to the violent constraints of our world. Here, intimacy becomes a refuge, a zone to be constructed, a space in which we can fight against authority.
Andréa Spartà, for his part, creates mysterious spaces in the form of sculptures and installations. Here, he presents cardboard boxes containing objects arranged in a way that both calls to mind everyday life and is strange. On the sides of the boxes, the word “daily” enclosed by two arrows is a melancholy reminder of the cyclical nature of time. Elsewhere, an invisible work of art seems to be stuck in another dimension, in an inaccessible and fantasy zone, which the exhibition educators can describe to us.
Finally, Célia Boulesteix focuses on other existences and considers their memories. Her materials are often reclaimed and bear the marks of time, as is the case with this big metallic structure that looks equal part building site and ruin, or these damaged photos that hold memories that seem ready to fade away. In them lies a kind of enigmatic memory, which nevertheless has a role to play in this future under construction.

There are as many definitions of zones as people to create and inhabit them. What those imagined here have in common is a dreamy sort of melancholy that maintains the mind in a discreet but attentive state of alertness.

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.

Ethan Assouline (born 1994) lives and works in the Paris region. Through sculpture, installation, writing, publishing, drawing and the organisation of collective events around reading and writing, he tries and takes a critical look at the modern city and its language in his architectural, economic and political dimensions. His work was presented at the art and research centre Macao in Milan in 2019, at Crédac in Ivry-sur-Seine in 2022 and at Le Grand Café in Saint-Nazaire in 2023. He is a member of Treize, a non-profit organisation for production, exhibitions, and editions.

Célia Boulesteix (born 1996) lives and works in Paris. She graduated from the École supérieure des arts appliqués Duperré in 2019. A multidisciplinary artist, she combines painting, sculpture, installation and photography in an aesthetic that blurs the boundary between past and present. She was artist-in-residence at the Villa Belleville in 2022 and at the Fondation Fiminco in 2023-2024. Her pieces have been exhibited at Espace Voltaire in 2022 and Lucid Interval in Paris in 2023.

Ife Day (born 1987) is a visual artist and performer. Their work combines text, drawings, videos and dance. They develops spacio-temporal and corporeal textures inspired by Caribbean worlds. Through the multiple discharges of displacement, Ife Day explores recurring motifs: dreams, the ecology of leftovers and wandering in order to try and perceive possibles for social and political transfiguration. They is an associate artist of Triangle-Astérides in 2022-2023, and their work was shown at the Salon de Montrouge in 2023.

Collectif Grapain is a duo made up of Maëva Grapain (born 1992) and her brother Arnaud (born 1989). They live and work between Paris and Hanover and are interested in science fiction and dystopian stories. The duo creates sculptures and installations inspired by industrial waste. Their work has been exhibited in a number of institutions, including Kunstverein Hannover in 2021, the Grande Halle de la Villette and the Kestner Gesellschaft in 2022.

Andréa Spartà (born 1996) lives and works in Paris. He graduated from the École nationale supérieure d'art de Dijon in 2019. His sculpture and installation work is inspired by domestic objects that he depicts outside of their everyday context. He was artist-in-residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in 2021 and at the Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella, Italy, the following year. His work has been exhibited in spaces including Kunsthalle Berne, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dole and the Fondazione Zimei in Pescara, Italy.

Sandar Tun Tun (born 1989) lives and works in Marseille. Their work is built on fantasising, new alliances and collaborative trajectories. An artist, researcher, DJ and composer, they develops work in sound, space and performance centered on listening and sensible and critical reactivity. Their work was shown at the Friche La Belle de Mai in 2022 and at the art centre Villa Arson in 2023. The same year, they performed at MACRO in Rome.

The artistic duo Xolo Cuintle was formed in 2020 by Romy Texier (born 1995) and Valentin Vie Binet (born 1996). They live and work in Paris and Aubervilliers and are trained in applied arts. The duo produces sculptures, furniture and decoration that they stage to create dreamlike, timeless worlds that allow for narrative escapism. Xolo Cuintle’s creations were shown in 2021 at Double Séjour upon an invitation of curator Joël Riff and at the Manufacture des Gobelins as part of a residency at Mobilier national between 2019 and 2020. Some were added to the KADIST collections in 2020 as well as the CNAP collections in 2023.