La Petite Mort

25 - 28 January 2024
Thurs to Sun, 12-5pm

Private View :
Thursday 25 January, 6-8pm

La Petite Mort is a collective exhibition featuring a group of early-career artists working across various mediums. Its aim is to explore the fragile nature of truth and transient essence of reality in the digital age, where a flood of information has distorted the semiotic significance of these concepts.

Events
Scroll down for further information about the workshops taking place throughout the exhibition

Introduction

La Petite Mort is a collective exhibition featuring a group of early-career artists working across various mediums. Its aim is to explore the fragile nature of truth and transient essence of reality in the digital age, where a flood of information has distorted the semiotic significance of these concepts.

The exhibition addresses questions such as: How do we conceptualise a future fraught with crisis brought on by the contemporary urge to excess as a basis for existence? How do we relate to the promises of traditional progress narratives? The participating artists delve into the impact of this on our sense of self and our perception of the world around us.

The exhibition’s title La Petite Mort alludes to the sensation of post-orgasm as being similar to death. It uses the French saying “la petite mort” — a loss of one's sense of self at the moment of orgasm — to explore personal and cultural experiences of morbid ecstasy in the disillusionment of hegemonic cultural logics. The sexual metaphor serves to illuminate the fleeting nature of intense pleasure and release that accompanies sexual climax. It is a momentary cessation of existence similar to the feelings of vertigo experienced by the digital reality.

This exhibition will be hosted by APT Gallery, Deptford in January 2024 for one week. It will involve public programs including an evening of performances for the opening, an artists’ round table and a public workshop during the weekend. It aims to create international connections among artists working in Britain and in Germany by building a bridge between students of Goldsmiths University of London and Düsseldorf Art Academy.

With Camile Batteux, Nicola Bergamaschi, Danni Chen, Natalia Drabik, Ella Fleck, Andrea Marcellier, Maomi Meindl, Emma Papworth, Moritz Riesenbeck, Lyllie Rouvière, Haiqing Wang and Julian Westermann. Curated by Faustine Pallez-Beauchamp.


Participating artists

Events

Introductions

Faustine PALLEZ-BEAUCHAMP is a former postgraduate student from Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths University of London and in Museum Studies in the Ecole du Louvre in Paris. She is an independent curator based between London and Paris. She has been nominated for the Dauphine Prize for contemporary art in Paris in 2022 and has curated various exhibitions in France and in England. Her current research spans from the relationships between humans and other living species through a queer and decolonial perspective, to the collective spaces and the commons in food and political ecology.

Camille BATTEUX is based in Düsseldorf. His practice combines documentary photography with staged imagery, juxtaposing them in a delicate balance. His work investigates questions of cultural influence and perception, often incorporating everyday objects with a nuanced interplay of humor and seriousness.

Nicola BERGAMASCHI is based in London. His practice expands over a myriad of media, mainly working across sculpture, video and image making. He focuses on processes that enable him to shape and create objects or reconfigure images in order to empower them with a reinvigorated purpose. Constants in his work are themes such as crisis, nostalgia and the imagining of the future. His latest series of work reflects on topics such as fictional organic and bio technologies, weapons fetish and our relationship with death.


Danni CHEN is based in Munich where she graduated from Akademie der Bildenden Künste in the class of Jewelry and hollowware. Her works revolves around body-related objects and space installations. The interactive relationship between people and objects is her main theme.

Natalia DRABIK works and lives in Düsseldorf, where she graduated in Fine Arts two years ago. In her portraits, all bodies are seen as vessels and externalized images of the past lives they have incorporated. The holistic and psycho(self)-analytical practice unravels in sacred visions and some melancholic fetishism. At this state her work has mainly remained private, as she regards it as an important part of her personal process to develop the work independently.

Ella FLECK is based in London. She works across installation, sculpture, writing, animatronics, social media and performance. Her work centers around conspiracy, technology and persona.

Andrea MARCELLIER is based in Berlin. She has studied Fine Arts at the Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf. The dialogue between the work and the audience is central to Marcellier's artistic practice. It translates into both formal and performative situations. They are part of an imaginary realism rooted in the fracture between a deep human bond and the spectacle of day-to-day life. If it came down to one question for her it would be, what do we have in common?

Thursday 25 January: 12 – 8pm (PV 6-8pm) Opening

Opening night with a variety of performances.
To reserve a spot please click here

Friday 26 January: 12 – 2 pm Tour

Guided tour given by Faustine Pallez-Beauchamp and exhibiting artists.
For admission and information please click here

Saturday 27 January: 3 pm Talk

Artists round table moderated by Maomi Meindl with Ella Fleck, Emma Papworth, Julian Westermann, Andrea Marcellier and Moritz Riesenbeck.
For admission and information please click here

Sunday 28 January: 12 – 1pm Workshop

Breathing workshop with Lyllie Rouvière.
To reserve a spot please click here

Thursday 25 – Sunday 28 January: 12 – 5pm
Gathering consisting of two performers: Ishbel and Maomi, by Maomi Meindl

The gathering consists of two performers who act as if they are working at a gallery - welcoming visitors and engaging in small talk during the opening. After the opening, one performer will be present at the gallery for the duration of the show, taking up the responsibilities of a gallery assistant. The gathering will rely on body language and facial expression as it will be performed "on mute".

Maomì MEINDL is an artist based in London. Her work extends into an interdisciplinary practice that often centers around sculpture and performance. Through a close examination of site-specific dynamics, she explores the performativity of the spaces she engages with, seeking to root questions of transnational subjectivity.

Emma PAPWORTH is based in London. She makes sculptures and installations that questions the urban environments we inhabit, drawing on materials and forms that express their age and history, as well as the story of their origins and past human use: to offer imaginary futures as well as contemplations on technology, tradition, community and long timescales.

Moritz RIESENBECK is based in Düsseldorf. He develops situational interventions that create a temporary staging of space and environment. Places and objects are linked as images of our time with socially, culturally or individually based associations. Thus, they function as symbols for contemporary phenomena, which he tries to capture through his intervention and make them atmospherically tangible. He is interested in the real, the memories, the traces, the emotions that we leave behind, according to which we construct our realities and wish that art also takes place in these spaces.

Lyllie ROUVIERE is based in Berlin. She collaborates as a choreographer and performer locating her work at the nexus of spatialities and bodies. She explores approaches and methods of how to deepen a sensitive and emotional relationship with our environment. She understands herself as a spatial mover who collaborates with both human and non-human entities. Her desire is to develop an awareness of the inside and outside realm, enabling a transformation towards togetherness. Rouvière's artistic practice is greatly informed by her professional training in architecture and dance.

Haiqing WANG is based between Düsseldorf and Berlin and currently studies at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Most of her works are time and space-based media such as writing, video, sound, performance, situation, and other media not yet defined. She is fascinated by fictional narratives and constructs fictional situations in specific locations, in order to deal with the gap between imagination and reality. She cares about how deeply the sensory experiences influence people's perceptions of their surroundings, leading to new ways of understanding.

Julian WESTERMANN is based in Düsseldorf. His work mainly revolves around the thin line between fragility and brutality. His objects often move on the border to being a prop or equipment, so that, in their apparent functionality or dis-functionality, a performativity is automatically inherent. This forms a bridge to his work as a musician in which he performs self-created pop songs that mirror and contextualize his pictorial work on a basis of emotionality embedded in the conventional structures of pop music.