Pre-Natal Phase

I called this phase 'Pre-Natal', then 'Baby' (2011–2013): the years of my bachelor's degree at ECAL, with Philippe Decrauzat as my tutor. I wanted to move my practice away from what is called contemporary art, towards the historical notion of the avant-garde, and to understand what an avant-garde could still mean. In 2013 I wrote that we take part in a universalised avant-garde, in which every individual artist embodies the collective by supporting the work of fellow artists, notably by showing it in the exhibitions they curate.

The space in which I presented my work counted for a great deal. The white cube of the exhibition and digital media both became places to work with. Brian O’Doherty's writing on the white cube and Marshall McLuhan's The Medium Is the Massage showed me the weight of the context in which art is presented.

My practice was mostly installation. Taken alone, my pieces could be seen as words; presented together or in groups, they became a sentence. I was interested in the limits of an object or a performance when it meets other elements. The succession of works on a wall could be imagined as film editing, in a 'sequence style', and each visitor's drift through the space edited it again. Several pieces came with notes instead of a fixed place: a canvas to be hung at eye level, a wall painting that stops at the highest point the painter can reach, a video that asks for its pale blue outline to be painted on the wall when it is projected.

Labels and wall texts became part of the research. Texts and ideas should accompany a work without overshadowing it or dictating how it is read: the visitor decides what they understand, according to their background or their mood, and this freedom left to the viewer is a great achievement of art. In 2012 I made Playing Labels (Cartels à Jouer), a deck of 37 cards: each card is the label of a work, with notes on how to show it. Robin Lebey and Frédéric Gabioud made some of the cards; the deck's rule is that tournaments of labels must be held regularly.

I came to treat every space involved in making art as material: the studio, the exhibition, printed formats and curatorial formats, through text, installation, painting, video, music and performance. Curating and my own practice began to meet. The deck of labels went furthest: P+ begins there.