Fair: Art-O-Rama 2021 – Immaterial Salon (online)

For Art-O-Rama’s Immaterial Salon 2021, Sans titre (2016) is pleased to present a sound piece by Jessy Razafimandimby. The soundtrack has been broadcasted in the context of his performance entitled ‘O.O.O.O.O.’ at La Becque, La Tour-de-Peilz (CH) in 2020 during the group exhibition ‘Modern Nature: An Hommage to Derek Jarman, part II’, curated by Elise Lammer.

The work of Jessy Razafimandimby (born in 1995, Tananarive, lives and works in Geneva) often borrows baroque imagery inhabited by chimeric figures to reproduce what he describes as “dystopic hallucinations”. Recently he became interested in the history of interior decoration and ornamentation, while exploring the possibilities of the concept of “home”. Based on this history his systematic study of decorative motives enabled him to develop critical discourse against a bourgeois and classist system of taste. Both active as a painter and performer, his work lies at the intersection of the two mediums, whereby his body “enacts” movements based on his visual and formal work and his paintings “trap” and fix motions on paper and canvas. With ‘O. O. O. O. O.’, Razafimandimby has developed a new performance based on the idea of a dance-lullaby in which a fictional gardener lulls his plants and flowers in order to accompany them into a dreamlike world. (Elise Lammer)

« Les nuits nous permettent de sentir
Les fleurs
Nous aident à capter lentement
et elles nous emportent
Plus grandes
Elles se remplacent
Une fois cent fois elles
Se perdent l’une dans l’autre
pour mieux se retrouver
Jouir de l’amitié des saisons
Lorsque rose épouse rose
Ma sympathie pour elles
me coupe le souffle
Je passe ici mes dernières nuits de Septembre
Pour fêter les premières nuits des Balances
Mon père était jardinier
et ma mère était fleuriste
Leur histoire était ordonnée, onirique, organique, ovale
Nourrie d’eau fraîche
Leur paroles fébriles
dans une danse morne
me disaient d’aimer les sauges des bois
Lorsque je n’étais pas moi
Mais elles mourraient sans m’attendre
J’étais trop petit, je ne comprenais pas
Mes parents me suppliaient d’aimer les avoines géantes
Mais elle m’aimaient sans me vouloir
J’étais trop petit, maintenant
J’en suis rempli de larmes.
Au fond
Les fleurs m’ont appris plus de moi
que je comprends d’elles »

Text extracted from the performance

In 2020, Jessy Razafimandimby was awarded the Kiefer Hablitzel Göhner Kunstpreis, the Swiss national award for visual artists under 30. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include Salon Suisse at Palazzo Trevisan Degli Ulivi, Venice, the 17th International Architecture Biennale 2021 (upcoming); at Sans titre (2016), Paris (2022) (upcoming); at Longtang, Zurich (2022) (upcoming); Favrile Figures (LCT in presential) with Niels Trannois at La Vraie Vie, Geneva (2021); Lemaniana: Reflections on Other Scenes, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève (2021); Droit de Visite de Digestion at Arsenic, Contemporary Performing Arts Centre, Lausanne (2019, artist residency); On The Temporary Balcony Behind The Dirty Window at 1.1, Basel (2019); Gardy Dream House on the Coast at Artachment, Basel (2018); Concerto per Aerosol at Fondazione Lac O Le Mon, Lecce (2019).