MAXIME CHABAL
- PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE
- GHOST IMAGE
- ALTER_ATION
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DE PROFUNDIS
- DOUBLE EXPOSURE
- CORE (CsO)
- SOLEIL DE PLOMB
- UN CHANT D’AMOUR
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UNTITLED (After Grünewald)
- HARDBEAT
Galvanized Steel, lead, paper, vaseline, plaster, projection on plexiglas, 3D air-mesh, shoe laces, 2024
“The installation ‘L’image fantôme (Ghost Image)’ is at first glance eminently architectural, formed and structured by elements typically hidden within walls, such as pipes or plasterboard. Various alterations occur within the standardized space. Precarious and imperfect constructions attempt to hold within the hollowed-out spaces of the room. Although initially disembodied, the installation features certain motifs: the imprint of a zipper running across a plaster sculpture, creating an arc of hysteria, or used laces from fetishized shoes preventing a form from collapsing. The title of the installation is taken from Hervé Guibert’s book, a writing about photography that shows no photographs. In the room, the only window is covered with a page from the text, which blends with large sheets of paper clinging to the glass through the use of vaseline, making it opaque. In another part of the room, a video projected from behind onto a small plexiglass panel depicts a palpation of lymph nodes on a male body. This evanescent image explores the medical gaze, oscillating between violence and care. In an ongoing series of collages, layers of printed images are superposed, glued in reverse, and made visible through the application of a greasy substance, revealing their undersides. This corpus, like a tattoo applied to the surface of the wall, unveils and transfers an invisible history, both past and present, stemming from marginalized sexualities and gender identities. The pages of a queercore fanzine, snapshots from Barbara Hammer’s film ‘Nitrate Kisses’, or “monstrous” figures from historical anatomy books become bodies struggling for their apparition, yet refusing complete porosity to the surrounding space.”