Paris

Our initial project

Cuban artist Jorge Alberto Cadi, to whom we devoted an exhibition and a monographic catalog in 2019, will be on display for the 24th edition of Paris Photo wich will take place at the Grand Palais, from 12 to 15 november, 2020.

Boltanskian with his use of photography as memorial, Warholian in his stitching of reproduced photographs, El Buzo seeks above all to reveal what these images conceal : melancholy, fatum, memento mori. But, unlike Annegret Soltau, Cadi is disengaged and operates by metaphoric transfer.

With his photomontages, he has perhaps indulged - like Hannah Höch - in an uncompromising satire of bourgeois and religious norms, but his subjects remain nevertheless engaged with our most archaic throes : the ghosts hiding in shadow like remorse or like the traces of our those who have died ? Do the decapitated figures carry their heads as a sign of alienation or, like Saint Denis, of resurrection ? Are the diabolical attributes with which they are sometimes bedecked hallmarks of our inner demons ? Do the movie stars of withered beauty remind us of our own inevitable decline ? Do the lips that are sewn shut and hollowed eyes remind us of our inability to speak or to see ?

But what is the value of this literal interpretation of his storytelling without the magical, supernatural, and fantastical ingredients that enhances the experience of his work… and tears it out of reality. And, even if he affirms that « we are stitched together by time », his practice cannot be reduced to a keeping of time, any more than photography cannot be limited to the writing of light. More likely, as with all fairy tales, Cadi’s devices may have unknown therapeutic properties that benefit us all.