DIDIER FAUSTINO
Habeas Corpus
Galeria Filomena Soares presents the exhibition Habeas Corpus by the artist Didier Faustino (1968, Paris, France), from January 19th to March 24th. The opening will take place on January 19th (Thursday) at 9:30 pm with the presence of the artist.
Degree in Architecture, the artist works in photography, video, installation, sculpture, curator, performance, scenography, urban furniture, exhibition scenography and design, in addition with teaching and architecture projects. His works are built between artistic and architectural methodologies. Using indistinctly both genres the artist question ethic and political the conditions of socio-cultural and economic communities of contemporary cities. Spaces, buildings, photographs, drawings and objects turn out to be possible platforms for the intersection of the individual body and the collective body. Each project represents a concept that subverts the social and functional context where objects are located. In this way, the act of seeing and experimenting goes beyond the dichotomy of the social rules that normally mark out public space and private space. The viewer's body is refocused based on changes to your surroundings suffers. This ambiguity of space's representation alerts the viewer to the dangers and pitfalls that can contribute to the deletion of your own individual and collective identity.
Doppelgänger is a white mask separates into two. Its conjoined parts fuse together recreating a sort of prosthesis for a mirror kiss. The double entry mask pivots the heads of those who put it on, defining the minimum limits, an immaterial border becoming real. Doppelgänger (2011) seems to prevent contact and yet it reveals a link, the meeting of the mouths which slot into one another through a perfectly traced, proportioned orifice. Like a hygienist mask maintained in equilibrium, Doppelgänger appears to be like a prosthesis which controls the kiss. Doppelgänger forces the tête-à-tête to feel the other, to let them slip into their inner world, with the risk of meeting their alter ego and losing themselves within it.
The purpose of The Naked Lunch (2010) project is to infiltrate an ambiguous object into the domestic space. With its undetermined function and sculptural look, it abolishes the distinction between public and private sphere, by combining values both esthetical and functional.
Le meilleur des mondes (2011) is an installation specifically created for the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine (Paris, France). It is designed as the distorted reflection of a meeting, a place of gathering, a space for exchange, dialogue and discussion in which power is exercised. This "micro-nation", with its uncertain lines, questions our debate practices. The strange and fragile proportions of this ensemble, on the verge of collapse, invite viewers to project themselves into it, without being able to stay.
The Hidden Pavilion
3 into 1: A double pitched roof, a flat roof, a vault, three archetypal shapes fuse into one unit space. The physical body and the mental body meet together in the refuge of mythical architecture, the primitive hut. A pure geometry to recall the principle of architecture as a prolongation of the human body.
Locus Amoenus: It grows up from the earth, standing like a belvedere, proud and naturally deeply rooted. But the beauty of the viewpoint is turned towards its inside, meant to be protected from the aggressions of the external world. A remote place to meet in harmony, as Lucrece defines the Locus Amoenus in "De natura rerum", associating voluptuousness with nature. The wise gets together with himself and his friends, in the pleasure of exchange without identification.
Space of experiences: By experimenting the collision of three entities, confronting but merging smoothly into one, the body is incorporated in the space. The human has to live the space. The Hidden Pavilion (2011) reveals the importance of the body, a presence of weight, a chain of lived experiences: flesh / touch / sensation / pleasure. The space sets us in the presence of ourselves, of our existence. A sensory, physical and carnal manifestation of existence.
Double Happiness (2009) responds to the society of materialism where individual desires seem to be prevailing over all. This piece of urban furniture, by being nomad, allows the reactivation of different public spaces. It enables inhabitants to re-appropriate fragments of their city. They will both escape and dominate public space through a game of equilibrium and disequilibrium. By playing this "risky" game, and testing their own limits, two people can experience together a new perception of space, void, lightness and recover an awareness of the physical world. This hybrid object, meaningful only through the body, being all at once physical and social may be a tool for a collective experience of fragility.
Queer: A flag is suspended to a step ladder as a "speaker's corner". On this flag, a logo embroidered in relief looks to an esoteric sign. It symbolize the encounter of the three genders: man, woman and transgender.