RE TOURNER LA TERRE
JOT FAU
M30, ESA SAINT-LUC, BRUXELLES, 13.12.2024 - 10.01.2025
At
first glance, M30, the exhibition space at ESA St-Luc, seems
relatively unglamorous. Bordered on one side by a corridor that doesn't say its name, and on the other by a long table-stage where
students vegetate and work, it is also adjacent to the cafeteria
(panini, soup, daily special, self-service microwave, etc.). The
supposed ungratefulness of the place is a lure. The most we can say
is that it is peculiar. The walls are aligned parallel to each other,
creating a rare species of white cube. A cube without angles. No
overall view is possible, or only vaguely, from the side, as if we
were looking at the backstage area cut out by its legs' curtains from
a theatre stage. Jot Fau's sculptures encourage this kind of
viewpoint.
Although
they offer a frontal image, a slight shift in position will reveal
many details, including the a priori not very obvious relationships
they maintain with their environment and its inhabitants: pupils and
teachers, random extras in the exhibition. This play of
superimpositions recurs regularly, and it's enough to read the list
of materials to appreciate the extent of it. The piece Et que je
resterais là, immortelle, oubliant avec quelle facilité, je pourrais,
une fois encore me relever, 2022, reproduced in the drawing above,
for example, reads: ‘80 x 22 x 27 cm, cotton-covered wood, cotton,
wool-covered wood, leather-covered ceramic’. It's hard not to smile
when you read these words, which, in the form of a list, expose what
the materials conceal - provided you take the author at her word.
There is no proof of the existence of wood and ceramics covered in
cotton, wool and leather, other than the convention of the
exhibition, which encourages you to name your materials. The pleasure
we derive from reading these layers, which can only be done word by
word, resembles a stripping, is accompanied by a
sensuality that is both material and erotic. ‘Leather-covered wood,
kapok-stuffed leather, leather, rope, leather-covered rope,
silk-covered wool’ are all materials that we imagine to be in
contact with the skin, and which may also evoke the practice of
bondage. The object they make up does not necessarily indicate any
link with this practice. It's a box that could be a miniature
bedroom, with a mattress and two pillows inside. It is placed on a
sloping support, itself resting on another support, which in turn
wraps around a third support to which it is attached by a rope. The
title, Komt dan bie mie om je te warmen, could translate as So come near me
to warm up. The phrase could be addressed to a lover, a parent to a
child, or any other emotional relationship between two people.
There is no shortage of tenderness in the exhibition, but it is often matched by cruel details that are not devoid of humour. In Elles sont cassées, elle marchent encore, for example, two headless and legless wooden puppets lie side by side, one lifting its stump as if to illustrate the cruel truth of the title. Or in Quand l'enfant était enfant, where an anthropomorphic twig is caught in a garment net, a sort of turtleneck stretched over the surface of the entire body, irritating every nook and cranny. Only the extremities protrude, including what could be a sex, a sort of oxymoron between the healing of a severed branch and the creation of a small twisted willy, as if rolled in modelling clay.
The title of the exhibition, re tourner la terre, reminded me of a collection of stories written by Daniel Oster and grouped together under the title L'ouverture des terres. Here's what the first few paragraphs of the back cover say:
‘Under the name of Askalapios, the ancient Greeks of Thessaly worshipped a god who was both a destroyer and a healer: the mole-god. Often thought to be the son of Apollo, this zigzag god, this voracious god who gives off his own light, this navel-god, was in fact Apollo himself.
Mole-god (or rat, lizard, owl) and sun-god, here we have our double allegiance in a single myth: above and below. One is sacred, public and highly valued; the other is secret, hidden and ‘shameful’.
But isn't what happens underground also our sun? Don't children imagine that if they dig under the ground they're treading, they'll find the sky? If we agree to penetrate beneath the surface, if we refuse the (self-interested, reassuring, mystifying) exaltation of surfaces, won't we discover the real world that is being hidden from us?
It seems to me that Jot Faut's scultptures are also about this double belonging, above and below. Covered forms lose their original identity to reveal a new one or, over a longer period, end up cohabiting in an image that is neither one nor the other.
Cyriaque Villemaux