Marc Buchy

TENIR À L'OEIL (KEEP A CLOSE EYE)

Exhibition

Marc Buchy is estab­lish­ing a shape-shifting body of work that eludes the traditional categories of history and art. His creations are rarely objects and remain outside the scope of performance in the strict sense of the term. At the expense of so-called more ​“classical” forms of exhibition, the artist generally emphasises an operation that disrupts the visitor’s habits and those of the art institution that is hosting him. 

Called Tenir à l’œil (Keep a close eye), Marc Buchy’s exhibition deals with the idea of sur­veil­lance and the many behaviours that it can induce. It is not so much ​“what there is to see” that interests the artist, but rather ​“how things are seen”. He questions the place of the mind in the act of looking, and how this achieves the con­struc­tion of a reality, of a point of view, sometimes connecting itself to a ​“machine-eye” and to the mechanised gaze which fuels current debates on ​“sur­veil­lance capitalism”.

For a few months now, Marc Buchy has been building rela­tion­ships and taking action with the people in and around the Museum (staff, stewards, visitors, neighbours). Several protocols - some suggested, others staged - will take place before the exhibition, during it, and at the private viewing. Displacing the role of the artist, Marc Buchy sets about watching over those who surveil (watching the watchmen, if you will); like a game between ​“sur­veil­lance” and ​“watching over”. While these people ensure that all is well with the exhibition and the hosting institution, Marc Buchy ensures that all is well for them and with them.

An exhibition made of infil­tra­tions to detect in the Museum concurrent with the Teresa Margolles exhibition.

Curator: Dorothée Duvivier

This exhibition forms part of Watch This Space #10 - a programme dedicated to emergent creations coordinated by 50° north cross-border network of contemporary art.

Concurrent with his BPS22 exhibition, Marc Buchy presents his Con­di­tion­nel présent exhibition at the FRAC Grand Large de Dunkerque, from 21 September 2019 to 5 January 2020.