À Marée Basse

Artists: Alexandre Zhu, Clémence Besse, Lim Sokchanlina, Mathilde Cazes and Đỗ-Nguyễn Lập-Xuân

Curator: Lê Thiên-Bảo

 —

Vernissage at 18h, 07 April 2023

15 rue Beautreillis, 75004 Paris

—

In countries with long coastlines in Asia, fishermen perform many rituals each year to pray for a fruitful voyage. In these appeals, people perform their attempts to connect with nature through immersion, offerings, sacrifice, and prostration – or some combination of these rites. After these rituals, the ebbing tide reveals the valleys, the rocks and the remains of the offerings on the sand that once formed a bridge between man and the divine.

Inspired by this poetic and mysterious scene, Lê Thiên Bảo proposes an abstract approach to "water" according to East and Southeast Asian ideologies and traditions. Echoing her selection at There is no lonesome wave at Poush Aubervilliers, Thiên-Bảo prolongs the waves to the very first exhibition À Marée Basse at Galerie BAQ (Paris).

Alexandre Zhu de-contextualizes the structure of an anti-tsunami dam in “Landmark V” (2018) resizes it using a meticulous drawing technique, and then places it on an empty whiteboard. The artist explores the complex relationship between man and nature, seeking a balance between boundaries and territory, survival, and protection. 

Clémence Besse is fascinated by volcanic beaches because of their mixed energies of water, fire, earth and air. "Glorious Cinders" (2023) is olfactory poetry that explores the constant self-renewing energy of life, like fire and seawater, destructive yet purifying. The perfume takes us to this imaginary scene where the ocean embraces the burnt materials of volcanic rock, where the tide pools and washes the algae, the strange plant that lives between water and rock, to its chlorophyll.

Taking over the ancient stonewall basement of the gallery, “Letter To The Sea” (2019) by Lim Sokchanlina invites viewers to stand in front of the letter and the video, as he delivers his words under the sea at koh Kut (Kut island, near the border between Cambodia and Thailand). The letter is the artist’s hommage to his ‘brothers’, the anonymous Cambodian fishermen who died during fishing slavery in Thailand's fishing industry, discovered by the Cambodian government in 2015. 

Mathilde Cazes takes her time to dive deeper into the mysterious moments on Earth and aquatic life. ‘Abbesses’ (2019) takes the form of the teeth of a giant abyssal fish in the deep sea, while ‘Vertebrate I’ (2020) opens a thin line like a spine, tearing the sand apart when low tide. Her work creates an invisible link, tightening life with the sea in a cycle of reincarnation, from nature to still life, from living to ecological decay.

Last but not least, Đỗ-Nguyễn Lập-Xuân shows a page in her long journey, reminding us about the coming season with ‘In Time For Spring Delay (03)’ (2023). She records the movements of the always-evolving landscapes. This time, it is the melting snow in Oslo, Norway. The documentary accompanying the work shows the painting's durational performance, without the presence of the artist. It is part of her meditative diary, in which she finds solace in the freedom of the unbounded nature, no matter what territory it represents.