OPENING JANUARY SUNDAY 12, FROM 3 TO 7 PM

AMAREM

 Side A

Track 1

Let's start with a crackling sound, a hue that wraps around us before the diamond settles into the groove. Once inside, there is no way out. Let's get rid of the context, the turntable, the sleeve, and the fetish, to keep only the black mass and its surface. Visually, we're a long way from the score, which gives an explicit account of variations, murmurs, latencies and rhythms, all things that vinyl only condenses into an invariable thread. It's incredible to think that so many subtleties, possible sensations and echoes nestle at the heart of this groove, whose roughness eludes us and seems no different from any other groove, scratch, or line. And yet...

Track 2

Hiding from the rain and snow
Trying to forget, but I won't let go
Looking at a crowded street
Listening to my own heartbeat

Take Me To Your Heart, Eurythmics

Track 3

Our conversations around the exhibition quickly drifted off the path we were trying to blaze. Music and feelings took over, very quickly, very naturally, even though we were constantly trying to get things back on track. After all, what if this was our groove after all? In any case, it is one that Gerald Petit follows spontaneously, both through dialogue and in his work. His practice is nurtured by exchanges, conversations and feelings that form an elusive framework. His works are permeated by beloved and loving characters, by bonds of friendship and trust. These ties extend to the scale of his exhibitions, often subject to invitations, as in his latest exhibition Ni Île, a showcase welcoming the presence of those he considers his “tribe”. Photography, which he has been practising since his early years as a student, also enables him to give a body, sometimes a face, to these presences, which he can then invoke as he pleases. In this way, each exhibition brings together distinctive figures, forging new connections, expressions and associations. The idea of the groove, whose asperities make for singularity and magic, is also found in the way Gerald Petit conceives and invests the form of the exhibition. Architecture, as a fixed, linear given, is transformed by the works. Its structure is not directly affected - although, on some occasions, curious coloured threads emerge directly from the walls - but the journey and narrative woven by the works give it a new dimension. In Gerald Petit’s work, balance is constantly at stake between space, form, narrative and poetry, driven by a desire to reveal the full potential of a place and to give it an intimate charge of its own, until perception replaces the gaze.

Track 4

Polaroïd, roman photo
Aimant les flashes sentimentaux
Humanoïde, incognito
Amour impossible et mélo

Polaroïd/Roman/Photo, Ruth

Track 5

Gerald Petit's practice has defined itself without anchors, without restraint. The exhibition demonstrates and embodies this idea. Photography and painting rub shoulders, as do gesture and concept. Over the years, his practice has taken unexpected turns, constantly renewing itself while retaining a coherence that, although being at times subtly hermetic, remains particularly singular. Each form is a new attempt to give an account, to reveal, searching with detours and meticulousness for the source of something mysterious that infuses the work - a feeling, an instinct? It's an arduous and assiduous quest, which comes undone as it's accomplished. Some manifestations of this search can nevertheless be discerned in details and emanations: clouds, which are not clouds at all, emanating from deep darkness, play on our perception in abstract canvases that are neither white nor black; coloured figures escape focus and stare back at us in an enigmatic, fluorescent blur; bodies freeze, against all odds, interrupting movements that we would never have thought could be captured. We sense a desire to shape a landscape inhabiting the world without upsetting it. It is an undertaking that takes time, self-sacrifice and distance, where distance is not always a given. The groove is dug in small touches, those which from afar seem derisory, discreet, fleeting in the immensity of life, but which, when we are lucky enough to observe them up close, can unbalance the whole realm of senses. All the while doing so without grand gestures or big words but with the spontaneity of “one who makes his honey,” as he says.

Track 6

So let the rain come down
Let the rain come down
Let the rain come down, down
Let the rain come down
Let the rain come down
Let the rain come down, down

17 Days, Prince

Side B

Track 7

The crackle, again, creeping into every nook and cranny. You always end up forgetting it until an opening, a level, or a sigh settles in. And then it vanishes again.

Track 8

Something in that cloud in the sky
Something
Do you feel it passing by?
Whatever it is
Makes me wonder why
Sometimes I sit here and wonder why
Makes me wonder
Birds that fly in the sky
Wonder, they wonder why
Everyday, seasons passing by makes me
I wonder why
Sometime in the evening it makes me sad

 Something, Al Green

Track 9

There's something beautiful and soothing about thinking that the groove gives no prior indication of what the diamond will convey. We're not talking about destiny here but about possibilities and constraints. The two are constantly echoing each other throughout the exhibition. The latter are relatively easy to distinguish. These are the constraints of the image, of the material, of the paint, of the time it takes to dry, of its chemical reactions that determine days and nights, disturbing reality and vision; those of the lens, the paper, the format; those of rhythm - having to finish an exhibition, having to finish a text; those of language, of speech, how to say, how to translate, how to give shape to all that escapes us; those that are bigger than us, carry us or afflict us, that we address without naming; those of grammar that seems to fix our collective perception, unless we play tricks of the trade. In AMAREM, the verb 'to love' in Portuguese, is conjugated in the future subjunctive, in the third person plural. It's a liberating title, conveying an infinite range of possibilities, of which the exhibition is a humble messenger, bringing into dialogue a range of significant manifestations of what can be. AMAREM, composed of a selection of pieces, some of which date back 28 years, unfolds like a new variation on a set of notes which, constantly reworked, carry a word of renewal, like the image of a heavy sky that we observe clearing up as if by magic.

Track 10

Looking into the sky
Ask the sky why I see blue in windowless rooms
Ask the indigo moon
Does she have any room for me?
Just one seat, one seat in the sky

If there’s no seat in the sky (will you forgive me???), Saya Gray

Track 11

There are no limits to the landscape that unfolds before us, at least for those who traverse it. When something appears before me, it seems to exist only in my gaze until the world resumes its course around it. If I can extract this one thing from its groove, I'll do it - a pebble on my shelf, a petal in a notebook. If not, I won't forget what I've seen and will see again.

Track 12

Endlessness

Nala Sinephro

Taddeo Reinhardt, decembre 2024.

AMAREM, solo show by Gerald Petit, galerie In Situ - Fabienne Leclerc.

From January 12th to March 1st