Enki Bilal has entered a new phase in his work as an artist. With the support of Artcurial he will exhibit for the first time\u00a0during the Contemporary Art Biennale in Venice. The exhibition will take place between 8 May and 2 August 2015.<\/p>\n
At the\u00a0Fondazione Giorgio Cini, he will unveil a new installation : Inbox. This is a bold artistic project designed specially for this\u00a0international event that will be freely accessible to the public. With this installation, Enki Bilal plays with spectators\u2019 senses and\u00a0their perception of reality. He pushes his artistic approach to a new level, continuing to deconstruct visual imagery. He offers a\u00a0new experience : to become aware of the disturbing but captivating pleasure of obscurity.<\/p>\n
\u00ab We are delighted to be supporting this innovative project, conceived by a great artist. It is important for Artcurial that we assert\u00a0our strong commitment to contemporary creation and culture, at an international artistic event such as the Venice Biennale. The\u00a0exhibition will be freely accessible to the public who will be able to learn more about this work that transcends the boundaries\u00a0between different art forms. \u00bb explained Fran\u00e7ois Tajan and Francis Briest, Co-Chairmen at Artcurial.
\nEric Leroy, Comic Strip expert at Artcurial, commented on the initiative of the project : \u00ab Enki Bilal at the Venice Biennale\u00a0confirms the international stature of his work and the reach of his reputation beyond our shores. He has surprised us once more\u00a0with this installation, and demonstrated he can have an impact in all mediums.\u00bb<\/p>\n
Enki Bilal will take up residence in the heart of the convent attached to the famous church of San Giorgio Maggiore, opposite\u00a0the Piazza San Marco. His show is part of a group of exhibitions hosted by the Fondazione Giorgio Cini during the Venice\u00a0Biennale, that includes artists such as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Matthias Schaller, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Liu Xiaodong.<\/p>\n
In an enclosed, minimalist and darkened space, the spectator stands alone in front of a large screen displaying a continuous\u00a0stream of indistinguishable colour images. This creates an uncertainty designed to mesmerize and unsettle the viewer. After\u00a0this initial hypnotic phase, the visitor is faced with a diptych that never completely reveals itself, subjected to alternating effects\u00a0of light and silence, emphasising the relationship between the discontinuity of light and the sensuality of the body. This is where
\nwe find the dark and passionate romanticism that characterises the work of Enki Bilal. The artist concentrates on the fragility\u00a0and uncertainty of our visual memory, on the contradictions and the material nature of the images. He draws on the need to\u00a0focus on the present moment and to rely on one\u2019s sensibility and intuition. In this way the spectator is able to immerse himself\u00a0totally in the work, in a poetry that is both physical and mental.
\n\u00ab It is a play on the senses, and the withdrawal of these senses, but also on our assessment of reality. The visitor experiences\u00a0the frustrations of his visual memory, faced with the impossibility of focusing on a conventionally hung piece of work to take a\u00a0particular viewpoint. Then, he must move on and leave the box, the after images still haunting his retina. This is an ephemeral\u00a0and solitary experience. \u00bb suggests Enki Bilal.
\nThe exhibition Inbox by Enki Bilal is to be organised in collaboration with the Fondazione Giorgio Cini.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
ENKI BILAL, ART IN ALL ITS FORMS
\nThe path of Enki Bilal\u2019s career has been built on daring and independence : draughtsman, filmmaker, painter, costume and set\u00a0designer for contemporary opera and the ballet Romeo and Juliet by Serge Prokofiev. His work is based on genuine aesthetic\u00a0requirements that are visionary and have evolved over time, not the pseudo-desire of an anecdotal and sterile modernity that\u00a0can only ever be a compromise.
\nAn artist full of passion, he likes to convey emotion, and to share something with the reader and the spectator. The essential\u00a0element is in the gesture and the revelation : the art becomes a form of self-portrait, but one that we can only discover\u00a0piecemeal, an introspection on the elements in his work, the relationship he has with reality and his way of understanding the\u00a0world, a eloquent reflection that embraces his work.<\/p>\n
Through the mediums of comic strip, painting and cinema, personal elements\u00a0rise to the surface. His work bears the mark of both a culture and a sensibility,\u00a0an interaction between the unconscious and the conscious, a reflection in the\u00a0shadows entwined with childhood memories. The enemy, and the beauty in
\nthat, where least expected. It is creation that surpasses the graphic legacy\u00a0and upsets the historical framework, that breaches traditional forms and\u00a0codes. The integrity of the drawing remains, however. A presence manifests\u00a0itself, out of the work and the subject, from the subjectivity of the artist and the
\nsensibility of the spectator : to look at things head on, to challenge our anxiety\u00a0and fears. A guideline that relates to history and to ambiance, and remains\u00a0attached to a strange, fantastical universe.
\nWith each comic book, Enki Bilal revives his artistic expression and embraces\u00a0a style that is freer and more spontaneous. The space expands while colour\u00a0remains the centre of gravity, an essential raw material, a natural element that\u00a0breathes life and carries an emotional force, accompanied by dynamic
\ngestures that reveal the intensity of the moment. The composition is related to\u00a0the range and rhythm of the colours, a deliberately restrained palette\u00a0dominated by the cold tones and harmonies that characterise his work:\u00a0gradients, contrasting and complementing. Lines and surfaces intertwine,\u00a0without spatial discontinuity, entanglement or unnecessary agitation. The\u00a0interaction of colours gives the drawing its depth and coherence, in a space\u00a0where the contours often remain undefined.
\nThis is a visual immersion, and the artwork becomes a colour field and a force field, shaped by the fusion of the characters and\u00a0the space, with large areas scarcely troubled by small touches of light and warm tones, and often whole frames dominated by\u00a0the incisive trait of Indian ink. But the line itself is not that important : it is trapped and overwhelmed. The drawing is a rhetorical\u00a0element that assembles and juxtaposes opposites, with sensuality, unable to flourish in the banal, conceived in the union of\u00a0polar opposites, pleasure and pain. Light cannot exist by itself, but requires darkness to accentuate its luminosity, which leads\u00a0us to those vital things that must collide for creation to occur: love and its absence, a desire for eternity and ephemeral life,\u00a0reality and fantasy. Conflict is the rule and harmony the exception. Desire, not linked to any objective reality, cannot be\u00a0innocent. No gentle illusion, it is inevitably destructive. Passion contains everything, love and hate are one.
\nEnki Bilal doesn\u2019t separate art from life, he paints the feelings that pass before his eyes, without idealism or contemplation, an\u00a0urgency forcing the decision. A conscious intention that enables the images to express the marriage of opposite entities. Art\u00a0often filled with tension, stormy, where tragedy can be read between the lines. He has endorsed the statement by Nietzsche, \u00abartists value highly the respect bestowed on passions \u00bb. He works using instinct, with an energy and spirit that reflect his\u00a0commitment and lucidity, and the battle of a creator with his work. The beauty that he loves and represents is not superficial : it
\nis baroque, dark and sensual.
\nHeureux l\u2019artiste que le d\u00e9sir d\u00e9chire.
\n(Happy the artist torn apart by desire)
\nEnki Bilal is himself, alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38539,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"cini_tax_event_categories":[1487],"cini_tax_institutes":[],"cini_tax_event_locations":[1464],"class_list":["post-38883","cini_events","type-cini_events","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cini_tax_event_categories-exhibitions","cini_tax_event_locations-island-of-san-giorgio-maggiore"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n