October 11, 2024 — January 5, 2025
Artist: Boris Labbé
Curator: Judith Guez
Drawing has always been central to Boris Labbé's life.
He is looking for several ways to express this material, to make it " overflowing, crackling, crackling, proliferating, living" using several processes: from classical drawing to 3D animation, and from virtual reality to scenography and video installation.
In this exhibition Ito Meikyū (formula invented from a collage of two words: ito 糸 which means "thread" and, meikyū 迷宮 which means "labyrinth") / Thread of wandering, the artist is inspired by what surrounds him, what he feels, what is not expressed.
He offers the viewer a wandering among these Things that emerge from his mind, without necessarily any link, and that appear to consciousness in a life journey.
The artist is guided by his moments of life, his travels, his encounters and his readings, in particular by classical art and Japanese literature. Her creative process echoes, among others, two major authors of the eleventh century, such as Murasaki Shikibu and the different scenes she imagines in the story of the Tale of Genji, or Sei Shōnagon in The Bedside Notes, with the "Things" listed in her diary with the "thread of the brush" of the feelings and emergences of her mind. Boris Labbé is also attached to the typical motif of traditional Japanese painting, The Fukinuki Yatai Technique
(translated as "roofs torn off by the wind") which represents the interior of a building, seen from above, without a ceiling.
Through this composition, he explores the multiplicity of points of view, the interconnected narrative relationship, the almost encyclopedic panoramic vision, and the issues of associating geometries, motifs and characters.
The exhibition proposes to follow a continuous and impalpable thread between his works, which, like a labyrinthine path in his mind, takes the viewer into a loop, from drawing to virtual reality... and from virtual reality to drawing.
Words become lists, drawings become collections, their spatial arrangements become volume and architecture then deconstruction, and their multiplications become movement and repetition.
The work is indeed there: there is never an end, in the movement as long as life is there, as long as Things emerge from thought, then everything can be, and everything can begin again.
"Interior and exterior, transparency and opacity, exhibitionism and voyeurism, lightness and heaviness, feminine and masculine; All these notions oppose or unite in the infinite cycle of a labyrinth with no way out. »
Judith Guez
Curator of the exhibition
#itomeikyu
@drawinglabparis
Partners
Appointment
New Media Meetings
Echoing the exhibition Ito Meikyū / Fil d'errance, and the challenges of presenting new digital mediums, we invite you to 3 days of round tables on Thursday 28, Friday 29 and Saturday 30 November bringing together artists and professionals from the field. Together, they will address several subjects, allowing for the crossing of complementary reflections, on different axes: from production to audiovisual and artistic distribution, from curatorship to the conservation of digital works, or from artistic training, to the process of creating a work. More information and registration by clicking here +
The artist/curator duo
Boris Labbé
Trained at the École supérieure d'art de Tarbes and then at the École de cinéma d'animation d'Angoulême, the work of Boris Labbé (1987, FR) quickly toured the world, whether in contemporary art exhibitions, international film festivals, or at audiovisual concerts. His latest short film The Fall
was selected for the Special Screening at the Critics' Week of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. In 2020 he collaborated with the choreographer Angelin Preljocaj and signed the video scenography of the show Swan Lake.
His films and video installations have earned him some fifty awards and distinctions around the world, including the Golden Nica Animation at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz and the Grand Prix at the Japan Media Arts Festival in Tokyo.
Between 2023 and 2024, he developed and directed two landmark projects: Ito Meikyū, his first virtual reality project (produced by Sacrebleu Productions) and Glass House, a video scenography in collaboration with composer Lucas Fagin (produced by the Ensemble Cairn). Ito Meikyū has just been awarded the Grand Prix at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.
Judith Guez
Artist, researcher, curator in digital art, Judith is interested in new artistic forms between the real and the virtual around the notions of illusion, presence, and wonder.
After a transdisciplinary training between art, science and new technologies in different universities (Paris 1, Paris 8 and Paris 6), Judith obtained her PhD in 2015 in Aesthetics, Science and Technology of the Arts within the Digital Image and Virtual Reality team of the University Parie 8. She currently teaches digital art, virtual reality and art direction at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
Judith has created and exhibited several personal works mixing the real and the virtual (Kristoffer's Room, Lab'Surd, Reverie through the Ages, etc.) in many places (Ars Electronica, Gaîté Lyrique, 104, CDA Enghien Les Bains, Laval Virtual, Théâtres de Belfort, Villa Médicis, BnF, etc.).
In 2018, she created the International Art Festival Recto VRso in Laval (Fr). Each year, she curates exhibitions related to an annual theme exploring the creative frontier between the real and the virtual, and the relational aesthetics of immersive and interactive works.