Artists Gast Bouschet & Nadine Hilbert, and Laura Mannelli, collaborate on a selection of works that explore the concept of worlds within worlds based on Dante Alighieri's opus. These visual narratives are complemented by texts from writers Benjamin Bianciotto, Agnès de Cayeux, Peter Gray, Didier Ottaviani and Catherine Vidal.
For the latest season of creative ventures, the Centre des Arts of Enghien-les-Bains joined forces with the Casino Luxembourg – Contemporary Art Forum, to collaborate on a selection of works that explore the concept of worlds within worlds based on Dante Alighieri's opus. In these physical, mental, fictional and virtual spaces deprived of natural light, human beings are brought face-to-face with their deepest fears, entirely immersed in a new world populated by spirits and legend.
“As above so below” is an axiom taken directly from Antiquity's alchemists and hermits, in which that above is mirrored below, the skies mirroring the earth, paradise mirroring hell, phenomena co-existing where semantic, scientific and cultural tradition would see them opposed. The concept takes the shape of a two-fold movement, a kind of symmetry, where that which is plunged to great depths is simultaneously elevated into the ether.
This opens dialogue between the work of Gast Bouschet & Nadine Hilbert and Laura Mannelli and those from other authors such as Benjamin Bianciotto, Agnès de Cayeux, Peter Grey, Didier Ottaviani and Catherine Vidal, a continuation of their visual story-telling that provides a new vision of our world via deafening obscurity and blinding light.
Publication published on the occasion of the collective exhibition “As above So below / Sur la terre Comme au ciel”, held in the Centre des arts in Enghien-les-Bains, from 20 September to 30 December 2018.
Gast Bouschet and Nadine Hilbert began collaborating in the 1990s. They have since created a complex body of work that challenges the fundamental principles underlying structure, visibility and power. Their practice spans an extensive range of media including photography, sound, video, painting, sculpture and text based work.
Laura Mannelli is an architect and visual artist, developing immersive experiences described as Atopic Architectures [in]between real and virtual spaces. She has exhibited in such events as the Parisian Nuit Blanche, the Festival accès)s( in Pau, and institutions such as the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Grand Palais of Lille or the Casino Luxembourg – Contemporary Art Forum.
