Ateliers Vortex, Dijon, France
https://lesateliersvortex.com/
Ateliers Vortex have invited Antoine Renard to produce a new installation in their exhibition space.
Antoine Renard focuses on the processes of repair and healing, which are both physical and psychological, intimate and collective. His work is strongly influenced by the many research trips he has made to the Peruvian Amazon since 2018, during which he was introduced to the ritual practices of the Perfumeros, Ayahuasceros and Washumeros healers.
For several years now, the artist has been developing a practice marked by the architectural, olfactory and sonic dimensions of these works. Using space and the senses as catalysts and emotional vehicles.
Antoine Renard focuses on the processes of repair and healing, which are both physical and psychological, intimate and collective. His work is strongly influenced by the many research trips he has made to the Peruvian Amazon since 2018, during which he was introduced to the ritual practices of the Perfumeros, Ayahuasceros and Washumeros healers.
For several years now, the artist has been developing a practice marked by the architectural, olfactory and sonic dimensions of these works. Using space and the senses as catalysts and emotional vehicles.
Tackling the question of adolescence and the body in transition, the artist works with stories, news items and monuments from Western culture, which he deconstructs and transposes spatially and sculpturally, creating immersive environments where new technologies, pop culture and ritualised practices intersect.
Veins is the title of a song by rapper Lil Peep, who died of an overdose in 2017 at the age of 21. The song tells the story of a melancholy and brutal heartbreak, the likes of which you can experience at the age of 20. Between drugs, sexism and self-destruction, Veins transports us into an allegory of love as a toxic substance circulating in the veins, addressing in Lil Peep's own way the question of abandonment, grief and reparation.
sing the song as raw material, the Veins installation is a physical, psychic and mystical deconstruction of this iconic track from the subculture of the 2010s. The various elements that make up the installation address the issues of pain and love in the manner of a neo-gothic ritual, an 'EMO' drift into the vibratory materiality of the experiences, fantasies and emotions that make up and break down bodies and identities.
Veins is an installation consisting of a large metal grid behind which a series of speakers broadcast a soundtrack of heavy, bewitching frequencies, taken from Lil Peep's original track. Worked in depth, stretched, altered, turned inside out, the song becomes a wave, an almost physiological vibration calling for contemplation and meditation. The grid, cutting off and closing off part of the space, is encrusted with large heart-shaped motifs in scented wax, all gnawed, melted and pierced, dripping onto the floor of the room like an offering, a series of ex voto in turn materials, feelings, fluids and symbols.
The third work in the installation is a series of texts based on the lyrics of the song Veins. Antoine Renard asked the chatGPT programme to rewrite the song, interpreting each phrase as a smell. The programme, drawing on the global content available online, then produces responses that take the text out of the author's subjectivity and into the realm of collective memory. Each sentence then becomes a new story generated by the machine, offering so many possibilities for regeneration and interpretation - lyrical, olfactory and emotional - of the work.
