Subsidences
Artist inhabited by a buried history of forms, materials and ritual practices, Thomas Teurlai invests spaces all over the world, from white cube to decaying industrial spaces. Uncovering stories, rearranging sounds, sculptures and human sciences, the artist brings back life and movement to abandoned objects and stories. From this meeting between the worlds of alchemy, DIY and the sacred emerge hybrid installations that solicit our erogenous zones. The visitor finds himself involved, body and soul, in these spaces of quirky poetry, where time seems to expand.
For his exhibition at Frac Bretagne, Thomas Teurlai focusses on subsidence, a geological phenomenon describing the sinking of mega-cities due to the pumping of underground water and intensive concreting. This global collapse serves as the start of a filmic wandering in subjective view.
Cyberpunk reverie where a ghost museum wanders its feet in the water, collapsing under the repeated assaults of spores and other antediluvian viruses. A wandering back in time, weaving together seemingly distant spaces.
There will be the mummies of street artists lying on the dusty banks of a stillborn story.
A radioactive granite astrolabe making up the soundtrack, like an inverted monolithic Theremin.
And a text as a epileptic spinning wheel, spinning the way off to exit the tunnel.
On the other side of the stained wormhole.
THE ARTIST
Thomas Teurlai (1988, France), lives and works in Clichy.
Graduated from Villa Arson, Nice in 2011, he completed his training with a post-diploma from the Lyon art school in 2014. In 2015, he was awarded the 17th Prix de la Fondation Ricard. His work is also presented as part of La Nuit Blanche and Ateliers de Rennes, Contemporary Art Biennale, at the Cantini Museum in Marseille (2016), at the Palais de Tokyo (2017) at La Panacée, Montpellier (2018) and at the Les Tanneries d’Amilly contemporary art center (2019).
Image : Thomas Teurlai, Loots, 2011-2021, in collaboration with Ugo Shiavi © Thomas Teurlai