There is a world that lives in the abyss, keepers of forms and presences that don't care about what lives up here. Inaccessible, often inhospitable, the backdrop is a metaphor for all those spaces, physical or ideal, which remain hidden and where memories, nightmares, ghosts live. The starting point of a broad research project on the relationship between the figure of the woman and the element of water, FONDALE is an exploration of the concept of depth through time and space, interposing itself between what is visible and invisible, between reality and perception. Playing with the double meaning of the term – in Italian it indicates both the soil of the sea or of a marshy ecosystem and the background scenography of a theater or film set – the exhibition invites a change of perspective, placing itself in the passage from object to subject and questioning the agency relationship.

The image of the backdrop is superimposed on the deep architecture and the high windows of the place, a trace of the artistic experience of Cité Falguière magically survived over time, offering an epiphany behind the door of Atelier 11. The artists' works listen to this space, record its temperature, echoes and whims, activating new visions and configurations. As we walk in deep terrain, the eyes seek the light beyond the surface. And here it is, filtering from above, its rays make the water that rolls up suspended in the void shine. It observes us in its eternal floating, memory of an ancient flow crystallized by the jellyfish that intercepted its gaze. An underground life presses to get out: you can see the roots wriggling in the soil, the driving force of resilient organisms. They climb upwards, they don't surrender to matter, nor to gravity. Meanwhile, an apparently soft element stands on the sidelines. It was once on its way to some unknown destination, now it's on hold. As it cradles itself in the memory of the world it comes from, it elaborates its future, the next encounter, torn between the landscape it inhabits now and infinite ideal landscapes. All these presences are still listening, and so are we. In listening we temporarily inhabit depth. A metallic sound, muffled at times, takes us to another space, more underground, darker. The noise is as serious as its image is light. The air dances sinuously in a concrete environment, dragging a weight that sings with its every movement. So opposite, they are part of a single design.

What is hidden in the depths? In probing it, one enters a hyper-populated universe, made of inextinguishable fires. If the works dig behind the surface, into the abyss of history and memory, the exhibition practices an action of slow emergence, collectively restoring a primordial landscape, in which movement and stillness, darkness and light coexist. FONDALE is the beginning of an exploration process, but also an exercise on the gaze and an invitation to seek the soul of the invisible yet fundamental matter for our existence. Like air, like water.

Rotem Gerstel, Corinna Gosmaro, Ángela Jiménez Durán and Xolo Cuintle

L'AiR Arts, 11 Cité Falguière, 75015 Paris, FR

Valentin Vie Binet