I CONCENTRATE ON YOU, ELOGE DE LA MAIN

AFTER KEN LUM

2011

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Mirror, dye print on transparent paper

125 x 95 cm

I concentrate on you is an allusion to the series Photo-mirrors (1997) by Ken Lum in which the Canadian artist has slipped family photos at the edge of mirror frames, thus questioning the relationship between the viewer, the image and the work. The returned Mirror becomes a metaphor for reflection: behind each work, there is an artist thinking, this thought being signified by a hand gesture. In 1934, in Éloge de la main, Henri Focillon explained that "art is made with hands" and he imagined in a prophetic way art the day "where one will paint using a machine or a torch" as "the art from another planet, where music would be the graph of sound, where exchanges of thoughts would take place without words, by waves"; the hand seems still necessary to work matter, even if it’s only grey matter.