Mulhouse | ArtRegion: Basel - Oberrhein

La Kunsthalle Mulhouse

Julie Beaufils / Elvire Bonduelle / Chai Siris: Le Meilleur des mondes

9. Juni – 21. August 2016

Brought together at La Kunsthalle, works by Julie Beaufils, Elvire Bonduelle and Chai Siris will be presented through three independent proposals, including paintings, videos and installations. The works presented here are symptomatic of the singular universes of each of these three artists, and seem to be linked by a common preoccupation: in a hyperconnected world, characterised by the desire for constant awareness, which forms should we give to abandonment, idleness and laziness? How can dreams and sleep paradoxically create a state of resistance within our social, cultural and even personal landscape?

This three-part exhibition invites visitors to « experience an elsewhere»1, through an offbeat experience of contemplation and comfort with Elvire Bonduelle, dreams and memory with Chai Siris, and a certain form of disconnection and absence with Julie Beaufils, under the common title Le Meilleur des mondes.
1 Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep, Verso, London, New York, 2013, p.126

Julie Beaufils’s paintings are infused with references to televisual culture (series, sitcoms and video clips) but also with forms originating in social networks and other instant messaging services, such as Skype. Their singularity of Julie Beaufils’s paintings does not come from her preference for a pared down style and a palette made up of pastels, but rather from a voluntarily contemplative approach in her treatment of the most accurate subjects.

Paintings and drawings, installations and furnishings, as well as editing projects and collective exhibitions, make up Elvire Bonduelle’s work. For several years now she has been redefining the exhibition space as an apparently comfortable, cosy place in order to underline the visitor’s presence. Her vocabulary is composed of soft, minimal forms, and finds its inspiration both in art history and in the careful observation of her daily environment.

Chai Siris is a rising star in experimental cinema in Thailand and regularly collaborates with Weerasethakul. He is developing a body of works made up of films, videos and photos, dedicated to the Apichatpong reconstruction of personal and social narratives from different local communities (workers, migrants, villagers, families) where he gathers stories and aspirations. Starting with this part-documentary, part-fictional piece he presents a contemplative œuvre, between near and far, intimacy and history in the making.