YOU THINK YOU ARE WITHIN IN ME NOW

Mixing pop culture with elements of Surrealism, French artist Pauline Curnier Jardin’s theatrical films take history or myth as their points of departure and use improvisation, excessive characters and strange forms to create a narrative patchwork. For her first solo exhibition in Belgium, Curnier Jardin brought together two recent videos in one installation. A limited-edition vinyl, revising Grotta Profunda’s soundscape, was released on behalf of this exhibition.

When entering the exhibition through a grotesque sculpture of a hand, one first encountered Grotta Profunda, one of the critic’s highlights of “Viva Arte Viva”, the 2017 Venice Biennale’s centerpiece exhibition. Based on the 19th-century religious experiences of Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, and inspired by the psychedelic aesthetics of 70s pornography, Grotta Profunda is an erotic awakening, a return to our primitive animal instincts, venerating the naked female body.

A similar interest in carnival and carnage could be found in Teetotum. In this short film, which premiered in the Fall of 2017 at Frieze London, a sunny circus site holds some dark secrets.

Exhibition leaflet: English / Dutch.

On behalf of Pauline Curnier Jardin’s exhibition, a gatefold vinyl was released.

Pauline Curnier Jardin is an artist based in Berlin. She often works with the same troupe of dancers, performers, and the costume and set designer Rachel Garcia, to do so. Since 2007 she has been the Captain in Les Vraoums, a dada queer recital. In 2015–16 she was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam.

Most recently, Curnier Jardin participated in the 57th Venice Biennale and presented a selection of her films at Tate Modern (London). She has also shown at Performa 15 (New York), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), MIT List Visual Arts Center (Cambridge), ZKM (Karlsruhe), FUTURA (Prague), Museum of Contemporary Art (São Paulo) and Musée d’Art Moderne (Paris).