Etienne Chambaud Stock Figures, Figures de Réserve, Figure di riserva (studio view) Color photograph, tracing paper and tape 70 x 95 cm, 2010 Courtesy Labor, Mexico City
Kadist Art Foundation 19bis-21 rue des Trois Frères 75018 Paris France
The David Roberts Art Foundation in London, Kadist Art Foundation in Paris and Nomas Foundation in Rome are pleased to present The Sirens' Stage/Le Stade des Sirènes/Lo stato delle sirene, a fragmented exhibition by Etienne Chambaud in the framework of Vincent Normand's project Permanent Exhibition, Temporary Collections. The three translations of the exhibition, interpreted in a different language almost simultaneously at each foundation, are based on mechanisms of writing and transcription. Translation should be considered both the medium and the shared language of the whole project.
The project takes its title from the mythological sirens' song, which invents itself in the ear of its addressee. Here The Sirens' Stage/Le Stade des Sirènes/Lo stato delle sirene is conceived as a group of "written objects": absent but described, motionless but translated, unique but repeated, mute but transcribed.
The Sirens' Stage/Le Stade des Sirènes/Lo stato delle sirene is made up of an installation of Figures, a group of named, empty plinths (The Reef ), which acts as a space from which are emitted layers of speech and text. Actors will occasionally interact with this space, reading, memorising and rehearsing fragments of script and dialogue. Sometimes The Reef will remain silent. A group of framed Instruction Pieces hung on the wall will outline a series of gestures and acts. These will change over the course of the exhibition. A writer (The Copyist), present at all times, will transcribe the evolution of the exhibition day after day. The foundations' collections will be included through a series of photographs of their storages, in which all crates will be named (Stock Figures). A written contract, drawn up by a lawyer, will outline the conditions for the exchange and the conservation of copies of sculptures exchanged between the three foundations' collections (The Exchange (The Horse, the Cobblestone, Above the Weather)).
The exhibition is a collection of narrative fragments, playing with accumulations and disappearances, survivals and hauntings. From inscription to oral tradition, polyphony to cacophony, The Sirens' Stage/Le Stade des Sirènes/Lo stato delle sirene explores its own remains and is constructed on its own echoes, misunderstandings, partial interpretations and incomplete memories. The exhibition is conceived as a series of fossils organising their own archeology.