Artists

Valentin Carron, Ştefan Tănase

Press release

This exhibition suggests we consider art as a trance, an altered state of the everyday, a numbing of consciousness. Not by alluding to the lofty giddiness associated with artistic creation, but rather by framing art as an object dependent on reality. Admittedly, the romantics sought to transcend such an addiction by glorifying its victims as heroes. Alas, today, all that survives of their gloomy and intense transports is nothing more than a sickly, pale misunderstanding. And yet, art continues, under certain guises, to offer a raw and instantaneous alteration of our perception. It even seems at times to allow us to dream of aggressive and self-destructive intoxication. Unlike other psychotropic substances, however, art’s influence is amplified by collective resonance.

Without even a whiff of stale nostalgia, the exhibition allows Valentin Carron and Ștefan Tănase to express a feeling that posits their work as a rendering of a space in which they can survive. While one (Valentin Carron) was the teacher of the other (Ștefan Tănase), both share a worldview that allows them to clearly perceive the heady dispassion of a society that is all too familiar. For them, it is out of the question to give up the strange addiction that drives them to place art at the absolute centre of their existence in the world. When one visits the other, the encounter is stretched out and evaporated into excess, so much so that the next day Ștefan is forced by the police to ride as a passenger in his own car, hence the title of this exhibition.

But isn’t being forced to be a passenger in one’s own vehicle also a metaphor for the fate of the artist, shackled to their destiny? As such, even if art is sometimes a bitter ether, society is responsible for finding a place for artists who lose their footing. Luckily, art acts as a space that brings us together. There are no artworks without viewers. There are no artists without admirers, enthusiasts, collectors, critics, friends. There are no artworks without references. There are no artists without tutelary figures, alter egos, or a foothold in a shared history. Whether you look backwards or forwards in time, art will always be a dangerous game, albeit a collective one. Perhaps that’s what makes it even more addictive.

Even if it is always others who see themselves reflected in the traces and fragments that artists scatter during their run-ins with reality, art remains a realm of representation. It’s always part of the fun to turn the volume up and wind the car windows down. Driving is intoxicating, but this sensation is as essential as it is ordinary. Art becomes that sliver of space between our dreams and our habits. Being forced to take the passenger seat does not mean we can’t imagine holding the world in our hands. Simply coming together and talking about this intoxicating feeling of being alive is what Valentin Carron and Ștefan Tănase are offering here.

This exhibition is as bittersweet as sitting in the back seat of a car as it drives us away from the party, a feeling so ingrained in our personal history that we long to recreate it every weekend, just to escape the weariness of nostalgia.

— Samuel Gross