Vernissage Les Vitrines - Valentin Vert « Best Before: »

In the organizer's words:

Best Before: is a solo exhibition by Valentin Vert in the showcases of the Institut français Berlin - revolves around the theme of conservation: of data in energy-intensive structures, of artworks under strict conditions, and of parts of living life - especially animal and human species - that must survive in the ruins of capitalism, where poison has long ceased to be an external enemy but has become part of our environment.

To give shape to these challenges, the artist has created a series of sculptures whose cylindrical, vertical forms are inspired by the technique of drill core extraction. Each sculpture contains mercury - a chemical element that can make pressure and temperature visible - both a thermometer for bodies and an indicator of climate change. As storage objects as well as measuring instruments, they function as hybrid tools at the interface between laboratory and museum. With their sealed appearance and symbolic charge, they embody modern relics that carry both buried data and the prophetic signs of a possible future.

The sculptures enter into a dialog with a corpus of archive images that the artist has freely cropped and edited. In this way, a multitude of interwoven narratives unfold: Promethean stories of mercury extraction, the production of cinnabar from the metal and its painterly use from Pompeii to Cézanne, industrial megalomania to the devastation of the Bay of Minamata. Tragic fables of cats that go mad after eating contaminated fish are juxtaposed with stories of people whose facial features freeze under the influence of the poison.

Through a double play of scales - from the microscopic dimension of chemical reactions to the global reach of an international agreement to ban the metal - Valentin Vert explores the connections between the infinitesimally small and global dynamics. There is also a temporal layering: ancient narratives and contemporary dramas respond to each other, drawing a rhizomatic network in which social, economic and scientific dimensions are equally intertwined.

Questioning our ability to live with the toxic residues of a destroyed world and find healing, the exhibition ends with the protocols for treating and detoxifying the works themselves. In the subtext, Best Before poses the pressing question of our ecological expiration date.

Valentin Vert (*1996) lives and works in Marseille. His practice, at the intersection of sculpture, industrial design and craftsmanship, is based on a historical, social and political reading of technical gestures. The resulting forms create speculative narratives: animated artifacts that carry hidden memories - testimonies of disappointed futures or still possible fictions. In 2023, he was awarded the François Bret Prize. His works have recently been shown at Art-o-rama in Marseille, the Château de Servières in Marseille, Villa Benkemoun in Arles, the Center Wallonie-Bruxelles in Paris and La Villette as part of 100% l'Expo, among others.

Instagram : @valvert_

Indira Béraud (*1992) lives and works in Paris. She works as an independent curator and is currently pursuing a PhD in research-creation at UQAM (Montréal) in collaboration with EHESS (Paris). Her research project "Surviving obsolescence: towards ecological curatorial practices" links ecological issues with curatorial approaches.

She has organized numerous exhibitions in France (Paris, Lille, Saint-Denis, Clichy, Sarzeau, Nîmes), Hungary (Budapest) and England (London). In 2022, she was part of the Inland curatorial team for documenta fifteen (Kassel). She is the founder of the magazine "Figure Figure" and writes for various publications, including art press, Flash Art, aleï journal, Mental and La Mire. She is also a member of the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale of the Collège de France, the Chaire de recherche en études et pratiques curatoriales of the UQAM, the ICOM and the CEA.

Instagram : @indiberaud