Latifa Echakhch. The Sky is falling

The sky is literally falling down at the Galerie Kamel Mennour, which is currently hosting in its new space an exhibition of the Moroccan-French artist Latifa Echakhch. Born in 1974, she is the winner of the Marcel Duchamp prize 2013, given each year to a another young and promising artist at the occasion of FIAC.

The piece at the heart of the exhibition is a few meters high and large canvas. Not stretched in a frame, this inform structure is located in the center of the gallery room hanging from the glass roof. This huge piece of oil painted textile is half broken at the level of its only horizontal support from which it is hanging and running down on the floor. The precious destructions and non finito aspect of the “curtain” reminds one of an abandoned performance space. This scenographic support depicts an open and incredibly soft, light blue sky, where the link with grand masters of the past is obvious. The sky studies mania of Constable himself, resonates on this deserted scene. We can hear the whistles of nostalgia.

Nevertheless Latifa Echakhch goes far beyond melancholy. By proceeding according to the “minimal culture” as she calls it, the artist puts a question mark over the space and correlation of the forms. She cuts the exhibition room in a half with the diagonal position of the canvas, around which one can smoothly wander. She is trying to focus the attention not only on the work itself, but rather on the environment that it is cutting and highlighting. However she is replacing the artificial, geometrical and supernatural minimalist forms by it’s opposite. A soft, irregular and hand painted piece. Even though the reference to works by artist Richard Serra, whom Latifa Echakhch quotes as a major inspiration, is still here. There is verticality, weight and a relative simplicity to it.

Whatever one could try to say about it over and over, I rather think that the joke is here quite obvious and mostly that sometimes it is much better to just stick to the first degree of interpretation. The sky is literally falling down at the Galerie Kamel Mennour. (via LCjournal)