Galleries in Paris

How to address the second exhibition of Odile Decq in the Gallery Polaris? If the first exhibition in 2007, “Homéostasie” presented a single-object installation, Odile Decq decided that “Beyond Horizon” would utilize the space of the Gallery Polaris as support for reflection and creation.

“Beyond Horizon” presents the visitor with a ‘visual passage’ constructed with silver and black mirrors, in which the spectator will have the opportunity to physically engage with the space. The viewer is given the occassion to confront their own reflection within the space, and through movement perceive and grasp various perspectives simultaneously.

In the same way that we can look and understand a picture from multiple viewpoints, the artist doesn’t impose anything but suggests various possibilities of understanding the space in which we move. “..The horizon is an obsession, the architecture is an adventure with which it is always necessary to negotiate, once finished, we have only one urge, it is to go further…” said Odile Decq during a conference in the Cultural Space of Louis Vuitton. Now, for the upcoming exhibition at the Gallery Polaris, she indeed goes beyond the horizon.

Odile Decq eliminates no walls, no angles, no openings in the space. Contrarily, through the installation of these various silver and black mirrors she adds, prolongs, enlarges, complexifies and completes, not the space but the spectrum of vision that a gallery typically provides.

It is evident that each viewer will have their own personal experience, according to their own course, the time taken to observe, question, and understand. The visitor becomes the actor and discovers their position as a spectator.

Odile Decq successfully addresses any possible contradiction and questioning. She seeks simultaneously its opposite and its prolongation. Thus, the installed objects then become precise stimuli, that we order and interpret in our own way.

Odile Decq, parrallelling her work as an architect, has held many exhibitions since the beginning of the 90′s. Among which, the most recent include “Homéostasie” at the Gallery Polaris in 2007, and “Perspectives” in the Espace Cultural Louis Vuitton, 2010. Simultaneously, her most recent architecture exhibitions are at the MACRO (Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome), the Restaurant of Garnier Opera inaugurated in July, 2011, and the new building of the FRAC Bretagne which will be inaugurated at the beginning of 2012.