On the Other Side of the Sea

2020-2021

On the Other Side of the Sea - solo exhibition - U10 ArtSpace, Belgrade, Serbia - May 2021

What else is a painting if not a certain worlding (in Heidegger’s sense) on a piece of canvas? Clément Bedel’s worlding, that ontological connection to temporality and transcendence, allows the gaze to wander freely around the painting(s), to perceive the detached fragments of the biosphere and the remains of infrastructures in which human presence and logic exist only as phantom-like silhouettes.

There’s no dominant object that will capture its attention, nor a master narrative that will hold it conceptually. However, it would be wrong to think about freedom at this point. Just like the deceitful blossoming of agave, the bonbon-like pastel and acid colour palettes of the paintings hide in themselves a treat of toxicity. It is of the same character as the one that is concealed in predatory capitalism. The beauty of an ornamental flower might be appealing, but for it to reach the stage of full blossom, the plant has to consume its entire energy: once its potential is achieved it has to die off, immediately. A blossoming without a reward. Nevertheless, getting on together, according to Donna Haraway, means that multispecies are meant to stay with the trouble. Cobbled together, abstract and realistic planes anxiously relate to a finite flourishing, while saluting, captivating and sedating the viewer (the consumers) in the not-yet. Bedel’s paintings hide a secret in their polyspatial knotting manifested even in different textures of the colours. However, having faith in the after and aware of this toxic and tense hybridity, it is by producing sympoiesis (making-with) that Clément Bedel captures the world against any normativity. He paci- fies the little paradoxes and contradictions of growth. Strangely and despite the venomous petrol coloured water without reflection, he even succeeds to restore a trace of serenity and optimism. Atypical yolk-coloured sky and rose-coloured soil seem to make every entropic tension milder, and less of a treat.

The Other Side of the Sea is not post-consumerist, nor post-apocalyptic. It is a serene way of staying with the trouble that was initially provoked by the force of civilisational decline rather than by the force of nature. In this abolition of the perspectives of the world in relation to the dramatic blossoming, Bedel finds a new perspective. He does so by articulating the otherwise traumatic overlapping of antagonistic rather than complementary planes. Here, they demonstrate vitality and resilience rather than entropy.

Maja Ćirić, independant curator and art critic, 2021

Caught-up in static dreams, oil on canvas, 280x190 cm, 2021

Shimmering Through Reality

Solo exhibition - KC Grad, Belgrade, May 2019

Looking at “Shimmering Through Reality”, Clément Bedel ́s new series of paintings, one might bring to mind the apocalyptic films highly present in our culture at the turn of the millennium which questioned the continuity of our planet and put in doubt the human existence on earth. Science fiction is closely related to the anxieties and fears of our times and tries to give us a warning about possible scenarios if we do not act upon the way our planet and our lives are treated. The culture of fear is ever present and preoccupations have varied throughout history, from slavery during Colonialism through infiltration and nuclear weapons during the Cold War to the terrifying technological advancement and refugee crises of today. each time culture has its own fears but Bedel ́s series seems to evoke a rather universal perspective of a global issue. The images can be viewed as possible scenarios for part ii of « I am legend », « Deep impact » or « Armageddon ». Scenarios and not scenes. Devoid of hollywood aesthe- ticised characters (which appeal to audiences but render the exercise futile since usually the characters we see on the big screen do not exist), they serve as a background for the story. Bedel ́s human presence is not only more realistic but also more convincing and therefore poignant. The human presence (or rather absence) fills the paintings with nostalgia, because it is what has been done in the past that we are contemplating rather than a dystopian vision of the future that awaits us. Sadly enough these images are closer to the reality lived in places far away from the hollywood production, and the human disintegration that follows is undeniably already a thing of the present.

On another note the series through its oneiric atmosphere rather evoke scenes closer to Christopher Nolan ́s film ̈inception ̈. We live in a dream- like atmosphere in which we do not know anymore what is real and what is not. The truth is hidden from us in the perpe-tual presence of media wars and political propaganda. Naomi Klein ́s « Shock Doctrine » and its strategy points to the duality or rather plurality of realities which unfold in front of our eyes but we cannot see and therefore we need guidance, or someone who will speak the truth to us, or provide us with new food for thought since we seem to forget in the array of (dis)information we are given. The artist ́s approach is not so different from the role leonardo Dicaprio has as protagonist in the feature film: he wishes to install a new idea. This thought can be disturbing and dazzling at the same time, it is the realisation of humanity ́s outreach and it presents itself in an attempt to awaken us by living our own death. as it is the case in the film, the best way to wake up is to die in your own dream. Perhaps we have to envisage the total apocalypse, where some other non-human creatures take over, in order to re-think our future and be able to come up with solutions accordingly. Bedel does not give us an answer as to what we ought to do but he does give us hope, either through an invitation to enter a deeper stage of our worldwide passive dream in which humanity is unable to help itself or by creating yet another scenario to reflect on and pursue action that will serve as a trigger. A future not so lost but born anew with the presence of organic forms derived from nature, those without a consciousness that have been able to survive. In the same way that film has the power to mirror the he harsh realities of modern society, Bedel has chosen an even more appropriate and human medium, that of painting, closer to the human emotion and everyday life, not dictated by strategy and away from smokescreens. Films containing this subject are filled with elements away from reality in order to shock, stupefy and amuse the audience in the pursuit of capital gain, which is a paradox; Bedel ́s work is stripped of any wish to satisfy a public, it rather seeks to inform it trying to grasp reality and speak about a truth. We have failed in the management of our political, economic, na- tural and societal order and despite our mistakes we continue to do so. maybe this eternal now is already a fraction of apocalypse itself, a fraction because there is hope for it to be restored.

Anja Obradović, Hestia Art Residency & Exhibitions Bureau, Belgrade

Lighthouse, oil on canvas, 120x90 cm, 2018