As part of the *Il faut brûler pour briller* program, Caroline Breton presented a performance titled *Il y a le ciel, le soleil et la mer* at the Point Ephémère on March 7. Drawing on her experience as an actress, the artist—adopting the name "Soleil" for the occasion—devised strategies of seduction designed to draw us into an intimate, hushed space where the weight of well-being is celebrated in a moment set apart from the everyday.
Considering performative action in light of its contextual dimension raises the question of the intensification of presences—those of the artist, the spectator, and the action itself—but also that of the "will to signify" and of experience as a strategy for infiltrating reality. The crux of the matter lies not necessarily in the work’s cathartic or participatory virtues, but rather in its demonstrative pretensions—instances where the act of questioning itself becomes a postulate, or the axiom of a "will to will." Caroline Breton’s actions seek to subvert this celebration of transgressive performativity, favoring instead a recollection of what was already there—of that which dissolves into impermanence.
The scene—evoking the song "Il y a le ciel, le soleil et la mer"—unfolds on the banks of the Canal Saint-Martin, where an orange inflatable boat, flanked by two firefighters (one on land, one in the water), receives a young woman dressed in a christening gown, a shawl, and a white headdress. Slowly, she sets fire to a straw vessel—which begins to drift away, reminiscent of Indian funeral rites on the Ganges—before focusing on the crossing to join us, guided by a rescuer turned ferryman for the occasion, all while singing François Deguelt’s famous song. Whether through the evocation of collective cathartic processes, the figure of Chiron, or the goddess Ganga, the mysticism so prized by the postmodern West is present here—stripped of its everyday consumerist banality only to be infused with new meaning. After leading us along the Point Éphémère, the performer guides us into a room where we are first served chai in cups marked with a six-pointed star drawn in marker. Scattered throughout the space are elements that form a sort of personal mythology—though they are common, everyday objects: a key, mirrors, cages, and candles arranged in circles. It is difficult to tell whether Caroline Breton is inviting us into her private world—creating a kind of collective fantasy around the character named Soleil—or if she is fabricating a setting from scratch, like a mirage of an individuality dissolved into the commonplace.
What is certain is that the artist places seduction at the heart of her creative process. Indeed, as a boat carries her toward us, she sings and bursts into laughter—at times with a sultry air—asking us to follow her and beckoning to the men by whispering, "Carry me like a princess," allowing herself to be borne along while humming. *Il y a le ciel, le soleil et la mer* operates on the principle of an invitation—but the sort of invitation that cannot be refused. No imperative is ever voiced; instead, the spectator’s involvement is elicited by elimination: we are by the Canal Saint-Martin; it is cold, and cars and metro trains pass by in a grey setting, until a young woman dressed in white—attentive and smiling—invites us to follow her. Using seduction as a process and the womb as the matrix of her work, Caroline Breton develops a lexicon spanning water, fire, the profane, and the sacred to celebrate the coming spring and lead us into a warm, reassuring womb. The lack of a frontal stage—reinforced by the fact that spectators are free to position themselves anywhere in the space—contributes to this sense of protection; likewise, when her dress brushes against a candle flame, some people rush to pull it away while others hold their breath in unease. Beyond any notion of responsibility, what is at play first is the question of will—a will that surrenders to the charms and flourishes of a princess who is part diva, part succubus. Once seduced, the viewer is left to inhabit a soothing, shimmering universe that is nonetheless tinged with anxiety—that terror intimately bound up with Eros in its most everyday sense.
While Caroline Breton speaks of the matrix with a certain naivety, the freshness evident in her approach is merely a mirage; it conceals an intense tension rooted in the fantasy of a protective, maternal figure. It is a lightness weighed down by the urge for self-expression—the artist’s response to a form of theater that struggles to bridge the gap separating it from the living, and rarely succeeds in conveying a sense of community or closeness. Indeed, the physical presence of the body is not enough to reveal one’s true self; the celebration she offers reminds us just how exhausting and perilous it is to simply "seize the day" (even as we prepare to mark the fortieth anniversary of May '68). This reassuring world owes much to the caution the actors exercise in the face of the fear of loss; the focus is less on making demands than on restoring balance—free from victimhood—between man and woman, artist and audience, the living and the perilous. Through elements such as the body, video, text, and sound (she sings, sometimes accompanied by musicians), Caroline Breton creates an ephemeral space that exists not only in the experience of pleasure but also in the awareness of its own precariousness. This anxiety regarding the future should be viewed in light of the inner conflict highlighted by Gilles Lipovetsky in *Les Temps hypermodernes*—though, in this case, it is not necessarily a generational phenomenon.
Far from any desire to make a point (including regarding any notion of multidisciplinarity), *Il y a le ciel, le soleil et la mer* serves as a respite where we are invited to take shelter... for the time being. Here, allure is merely a stratagem intended to sketch the contours of a maternal space—evoking a fetal state—within which the vocabulary of a reshaped mysticism takes form. Yet, this sense of premeditation should not be viewed as an expression of postmodern disillusionment. The void has been digested and assimilated by the living, just as the dreamlike realm returns to the fore. The materiality of fantasy is heavy, its impermanence inevitable; Caroline Breton sums it up in a single sentence: "Welcome—shall we go to the cellar?"
BY ANTHONI DOMINGUEZ | PUBLISHED MARCH 26, 2008 in *Mouvement*