Camille Leherpeur (b. 1991, Paris)
Orpheus and Eurydice in Adana
"Navigating throughout history, C. Leherpeur reflects on the world we live in and our current condition. In his view, the present is less a linear succession of events than a set of intersecting and overlapping periods. It defines a heterogeneous assemblage of elements that we share with former artists and rulers, yet pertaining to a common contemporary condition. That is to say, time is an array of possibilities to be acted upon, recomposed and reassembled by historical investigation. As a result, C. Leherpeur’s art work conveys a certain experience of the present. Instead of being a mere outcome of former events, the present is to be understood as a series of resonances and reminiscences. These collection and superposition of periods invite us to rethink our relationship to the present and how we construct our ethics towards it.
One way to reflect about the present is to attend to the transformation of power and government. Conduct of the conducts, the government shapes the ways in which individuals conduct themselves. From sovereign rulers and almighty kings of the Middle Ages to conspicuous networks of international interest groups and corporations of the 21st century, governments have guided, managed, corrected and regulated the conduct of groups of persons but also of oneself in various ways. An analytics of the forms of government investigates the reasons, justifications and means mobilised by those who have exercised rule, and the problems and consequences that may arise from it. It focuses on the conditions under which regimes of practices came into being, were maintained and transformed. In C. Leherpeur’s work, such regimes include nature domination, isolation of a class of people from the rest of the world, or absence of reaction and decision in the face of tremendous needs."
Lucas Brunet in Our political mentalities: the arts of governing the present times. Edition les Murmurations, Paris 2018.
