An ambiguous body appears before us in the dim light of a parking lot on Rue de Belleville. A body descended from the sky, deposited at our feet in its white plastic wrapping, imprisoned within a synthetic chrysalis. Once exposed to the air—and our gaze—it reveals its virginal complexion and apparent sexual neutrality, so much so that we readily attribute to it the guise and intentions of an angel. A body of flesh, then, but one with the ethereal whiteness of deities, the evanescence of spiritualist apparitions.

This initial ambiguity reinforces the hybrid nature of our immediate surroundings: a place of passage, a public space temporarily imbued with a private dimension, a juxtaposition and fusion of the sacred and the profane in a birthday party setting punctuated by domestic altars and strange, hastily made totems. The artist deploys a personal grammar with liturgical resonances, invoking the symbolism of fire and water for an allegory of birth and the cycle of life, of femininity in its metamorphoses. Live music accompanies and marks the path with varying intensities, dramatizing its stages, suggesting the imminence of danger or the need for contemplation.

Caroline's presence among us is as unusual as it is benevolent, as imposing as it is discreet. Her slow movements and careful gestures enact an intimate ritual, the meaning of which eludes us, but in which we are implicitly invited to participate through our movement, our voices, our gaze, or the sharing of food—a delicious birthday cake, in this case! Everyone's participation is encouraged, but not imposed. This absence of authoritarianism reinforces the initial impression of an immaterial, transient body, a presence that can be challenged but which compels the audience to position themselves in the space, to create their own experiences and a sense of time, even if it means following or breaking the established rhythm.

Beneath its mystical veneer, its collective prayer with propitiatory virtues, its esoteric fiction, Caroline Breton's intervention offers a sphere of freedom and commitment, where action leads to being. Through video, she opens onto other territories and temporalities, expanding space and the realm of possibilities, stimulating the imagination. But here, the performative approach is above all a means of making discoveries from unforeseen parameters, where one abandons what one seeks for what one finds. She (like us) ventures into serendipity, this attitude of bouncing back from the fortunate and fortuitous consequences of an encounter or an experience, this English term in which Joël Gayraud sees the poetic alliance of compassion and serenity.

Céline Piettre

in Paris Art