Group exhibition 'Returns' at the Exhibition Halls Titanikas

This exhibition brings together Damien Beyrouthy, Dénes Farkas, Bruno Goosse, Anna Guilló and Pascal Navarro, with works that address the question of individual response to representations in a given situation from multiple angles and through different media. This exploration of reactions to various types of depiction builds on a research-creation project led at the University of Tartu (Estonia), which focuses on experiences of artworks and other cultural productions that trigger individual life-changing events in the viewers or readers.

For this exhibition, the artists were invited to reflect on the idea of reception and to question it through their respective practice, including drawing (Guilló & Navarro), installation (Farkas & Goosse) and media art (Beyrouthy). Returns looks at the idea of a reciprocal gaze between the artworks and the people who experience them since both sides are equally affected by the encounter. It also considers the active role of people reacting to the works, commenting on them and eventually even leading to new productions, as it is the case here.

Not surprisingly, Returns is also about reminiscence since the experiences haunt the works presented here along with the imagery that they have triggered in the artists, tapping into their personal history. Although encountering representations and responding to them can only happen on an individual level, these encounters often take place in situations that can be connected to a wider societal and historical context. Therefore, the works also share a common reference to past and present events that shape our society. For example, territorial disputes and armed conflicts feed three of the works through their depictions in popular culture (Beyrouthy), as transformers of cartography and itineraries (Guilló) or via our relationship with cultural heritage (Goosse & Navarro). These personal encounters with history also affect our understanding of public and private space (Farkas).

While the works look at the way we respond to images, they also question the validity of representation itself. For instance, how do the difference between the vast stretches of land seen from the window of an airplane and the compactness of satellite maps viewed on a laptop screen (Guilló) or the contrast between the cinematographic depiction of a street from Beirut and the actual location (Beyrouthy) contribute to our response to such representations? The doubts elicited by these experiences can made tangible by delaying the process of perception (Navarro), materializing the disjunction of space (Goosse) or offering fragmented and unidentified points of view (Farkas).

Through five singular perspectives, Returns thus turns around and upside down the question of the reception of artworks and other cultural productions, showing that it is a process in which the audience is actively being transformed by and transforming what they experience.

Authors: Damien Beyrouthy, Dénes Farkas, Anna Guilló, Pascal Navarro, Bruno Goosse

Curators: Sara Bédard-Goulet, Peeter Talvistu