Critical note

by André de Sá Moreira

The artist glides between the cones like a skier, but without skis, without snow, and above all, without a destination. Hands in his pockets, he adopts the posture of a body that is only half-involved, leaving it to the Asian music to organize the trajectory. The acceleration of the image produces an impression of accidental mastery: he avoids nothing, he simply follows the curve of the obstacles.

This march is an intermediary gesture, a way of suspending urban planning to a provisional logic. The plots become beacons without authority, points of suspension. The city, suddenly, resembles a ski slope devoid of meaning.

He transforms an ordinary sidewalk into a theater of minimal sliding. The bollards, usually intended to restrict passage, here become partners, almost characters. The Asian music evokes neither China nor Japan, but a mental space where time is slightly ahead of itself. The viewer worries: what if the entire city were nothing more than an involuntary slalom?

 

The movement is never frontal. It circumvents, it branches off, it escapes with a studied nonchalance: not participating, but being there nonetheless. The accelerated image creates an illusion of efficiency, as if the artist actually had a goal. But there isn't one. The result is a blind spot poem, an imaginary sport for city dwellers on the run.

 

“It seems like child's play. It seems like pointless training. It seems like a polite way to fill the void. The man walks quickly, but without urgency. The cones are aligned, the music doesn't comment on anything, and yet something happens: a brief moment when the absurd becomes the only possible trajectory. After that, we look at the streets differently.”
— Aurélien Geschwind