HERETHERE by Frédéric Khodja
07.9.2024 - 05.10.2024
It all began with an archive from 1967: a collection of slides documenting the construction of the Paris ring road, which was also the site of a destruction—the destruction of the Zone, a strip of land, theoretically unbuildable, situated beyond the Thiers fortifications, which would become an open-air slum in the twentieth century. Other archives were subsequently added: ancient sites in Iraq, most of which have since been destroyed; holiday photographs of a French family in the 1970s; a couple of cross-country skiers. From this composite material, Frédéric Khodja created Herethere, an installation that continues his exploration of geographical fictions by bringing together two forms of expression whose relationship is as tumultuous as it is fertile: painting, on the one hand, and photography, on the other. Here, inks on canvas entitled paysages périphériques; there, a succession of eighty diaphanes, each created by juxtaposing two found slides. These aesthetic, temporal, and geographical collisions open up new zones: a space of contemplation for the paintings, playing with the eye’s ability—and the time it takes—to adjust to an ever-changing vision, as when one tries to see through a window battered by wind or windshield wipers, oscillating between composition and recomposition; and a space of projection, inspired by slide evenings, where reference points become blurred, allowing layers of memory to surface and overflow the boundaries of simple recollection. |
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