Palais des glaces

“Despite all the good intentions, asking artists to introduce themselves in a few words often seems to me a test, an unnatural challenge. When I find myself having to say, “My work is about”, or “I’m interested in this or that,” I’m only too aware of the ridiculousness of the situation, the absurdity of trying to provide a guided tour of oneself. In the art field, you’re never better served than by others. What’s it all about? Above all, what you see, and what do you see in what you see.
In its condensed version, my biography doesn’t evolve much. From time to time I’m tempted to update it, but I can’t think of anything to say that isn’t already there. Sometimes I feel like changing it, but in the end I don’t, as I imagine I’m not the only one to tire of stuff like “spends most of her time strolling through the real world”, “doesn’t like cherry tart”, “can’t stand mosquitos and their nocturnal sorties”, “doesn’t follow the stock exchange”, and “looks to the future with a discrepant eye”.
(…)
Despite all the time that’s gone by, I still don’t have answers for: How do you identify? Are you more of a writer, a filmmaker or a visual artist? What are your feelings about gendered nouns and pronouns? So I try to dodge the question.”
Valérie Mréjen, excerpt from Press Release

“What we begin to understand is that everything here communicates. The cut-outs, the novels, the videos, the photographs: they are always portraits, and these portraits, whether they speak or not, are always condensed stories, language concentrates. And behind them is a hand that trims off the fat, as they say; that peels away the surplus and the nonessential; that gathers, slices and cuts when the time is right; that makes audible everything passed over in silence on the surface of a few words and, on the surface of silence, everything that still speaks.”
Bertrand Schefer

“V. M. All this leads us to the hall of mirrors, that maze as alluring as it is scary.
L. M. The hall of mirrors, right, where the shimmering of minuscule fictions, possible narratives, suggest shards of mica projecting light – from dead stars? Stars too far away? Or is it that, in passing the narratives on, the mica reactivates them, updating them into the present with no concern for what’s true or false, luxury or kitsch, here where the transparency of mirrors offers no resistance to the opacity of signs?
V. M. The disco ball effect in the hall of mirrors means you can’t really tell if you’re dealing with reflections or reflections of reflections. I like the idea of fake alongside “real” stardust, without anyone being able to tell the difference. The beauty of living beings lies in this alliance between the truly mineral and the pale imitation.”
Interview with Laurent Mauvignier