Mechanism/ Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, France 2017

Mechanism presents a theatrically-framed constellation with trajectories and ellipses weaving between cardinal points in the Centre Culturel Irlandais’ architectural design and history: between the courtyard and the historical communal buildings housing the old library with its extraordinary collection of philosophical and theological texts and medieval manuscripts; between the allée couverte and the internal gallery space, and ultimately between the constellation itself and the world ‘outside’ which is enticed into this new artistic universe through a dramatically hung silver and transparent veil over the entrance arch. This theatrical turn in contemporary art could be seen as an attempt to mark the exhibition experience as a pure ‘event’, pulling the audience into a metaphysics of presence and immediacy, but also indicating how life itself now seems overtly theatricalised, spectacular and performative – theatrically-framed exhibitions perform a kind of self-reflexive gesture recognising the complexity of conditions of reception for any art today. Here you are, an actor on this artistic stage, in this case, a ‘cog’ in Kearney’s ‘mechanism’, a performer whose actions and words will filter through to the gallery space via unknown algorithms, rendering you in abstract form, haunting you with traces of your presence in the courtyard captured just minutes before: a hauntology which obliterates the time needed to situate yourself in some more stratified context of memory and space – no time for a more contemplative Bachelardian poetics here as you enter a strange yet uniquely effective mise-en-scène.

Curated by Nora Hickey M'Sichili.

This is a segment of the exhibition essay by Katherine Waugh and the full essay is below in Franch.

Essay for SCULPTORVOX by Mark Leahy.