Romain Vicari
I have on the top of my tongue your name almost forgot
13 Jul - 09 Sep 2018
ROMAIN VICARI
I have on the top of my tongue your name almost forgot
13 July – 09 September 2018
Curator: Hugo Vitrani
Romain Vicari produces a series of hybrid works, mixing on-site sculptures, sounds, smells and rap clips, all of these elements composing a landscape in which fiction toys with reality, and where the sacred encounters the secular, and entertainment becomes a religion. While plunging the public into an environment between an urban and natural jungle, the show works like a flashlight, or the exploration of a mirage bringing in all of our senses.
Sculptures made of resin, expanding foam, metal, sand and tiling stand up against the concrete, brutalist architecture of the exhibition space. A flat-screen television broadcasts a video made in the workspaces of the Rues d’Aubervilliers and in the darkness of the rooms in Palais de Tokyo, in a film weaving connections between hip-hop, an alternative culture which is now mainstream, religion and the bodily gestures sculpted by the use of social networks. A sound runs through the exhibition, the voice of a futurist priest, accompanied by the diffusion of a fragrance made up of cannabis and leather. Vicari waltzes on the borderlines between the precarious and appearances, while bringing together public spaces (streets, worksites, advertising, weeds, a bench where you sit down...) and intimate spaces (the living-room, bedroom, sofa, cut flowers, the television...). All being places that have been colonised by the techniques of mass entertainment and which are at the heart of Romain Vicari’s work.
“Rap language is a tool for musical communication. Like a discourse, it can take a political and even sacred form. A rapper is a guru preaching words, underlining and imagining situations that work as rituals linked to everyday life. As with a priest, a rapper comes onto the stage with a posture posed between Man and God. He addresses the public and tells a story just like politicians do.” Romain Vicari
Romain Vicari
Romain Vicari was born in 1990 in Paris, and lives and works between Paris and Sao Paulo. A graduate with the congratulations of the jury from ENSA Dijon (2012) and ENSBA Paris (2014), Romain Vicari is a winner of the Prix Découverte des Amis du Palais de Tokyo (2016).
His work has appeared in several solo and group shows, in particular at Les Magasins Généraux (Pantin, 2018), Les Ateliers Vortex (Dijon, 2017), Le Parc Saint Léger, Centre d’Art Contemporain (Dorne, 2017), the Galerie Bugada & Cargnel (Paris, 2017), the Galerie Air Project (Geneva), the Villa Medicis (Rome, 2017), the Galerie Double V (Marseille, 2017), the artist-run-space Sans Titre (2016, Paris), the Galerie Ceysson & Bénétière (Saint Etienne, 2016), the Galerie Jeanroch Dard (Brussels, 2015) or else La Friche Belle de Mai (Marseille, 2015) and at the CAC La Traverse (Alfortville, 2015).
Romain Vicari is participating as a curator in the project produced by Le Collective in an abandoned church in Marseille during Art-O-Rama (September 2018).
I have on the top of my tongue your name almost forgot
13 July – 09 September 2018
Curator: Hugo Vitrani
Romain Vicari produces a series of hybrid works, mixing on-site sculptures, sounds, smells and rap clips, all of these elements composing a landscape in which fiction toys with reality, and where the sacred encounters the secular, and entertainment becomes a religion. While plunging the public into an environment between an urban and natural jungle, the show works like a flashlight, or the exploration of a mirage bringing in all of our senses.
Sculptures made of resin, expanding foam, metal, sand and tiling stand up against the concrete, brutalist architecture of the exhibition space. A flat-screen television broadcasts a video made in the workspaces of the Rues d’Aubervilliers and in the darkness of the rooms in Palais de Tokyo, in a film weaving connections between hip-hop, an alternative culture which is now mainstream, religion and the bodily gestures sculpted by the use of social networks. A sound runs through the exhibition, the voice of a futurist priest, accompanied by the diffusion of a fragrance made up of cannabis and leather. Vicari waltzes on the borderlines between the precarious and appearances, while bringing together public spaces (streets, worksites, advertising, weeds, a bench where you sit down...) and intimate spaces (the living-room, bedroom, sofa, cut flowers, the television...). All being places that have been colonised by the techniques of mass entertainment and which are at the heart of Romain Vicari’s work.
“Rap language is a tool for musical communication. Like a discourse, it can take a political and even sacred form. A rapper is a guru preaching words, underlining and imagining situations that work as rituals linked to everyday life. As with a priest, a rapper comes onto the stage with a posture posed between Man and God. He addresses the public and tells a story just like politicians do.” Romain Vicari
Romain Vicari
Romain Vicari was born in 1990 in Paris, and lives and works between Paris and Sao Paulo. A graduate with the congratulations of the jury from ENSA Dijon (2012) and ENSBA Paris (2014), Romain Vicari is a winner of the Prix Découverte des Amis du Palais de Tokyo (2016).
His work has appeared in several solo and group shows, in particular at Les Magasins Généraux (Pantin, 2018), Les Ateliers Vortex (Dijon, 2017), Le Parc Saint Léger, Centre d’Art Contemporain (Dorne, 2017), the Galerie Bugada & Cargnel (Paris, 2017), the Galerie Air Project (Geneva), the Villa Medicis (Rome, 2017), the Galerie Double V (Marseille, 2017), the artist-run-space Sans Titre (2016, Paris), the Galerie Ceysson & Bénétière (Saint Etienne, 2016), the Galerie Jeanroch Dard (Brussels, 2015) or else La Friche Belle de Mai (Marseille, 2015) and at the CAC La Traverse (Alfortville, 2015).
Romain Vicari is participating as a curator in the project produced by Le Collective in an abandoned church in Marseille during Art-O-Rama (September 2018).