Chantal Crousel, Paris
David Douard, Hassan Khan
Born in 1983 in Perpignan, David Douard lives and works in Paris, France.
Language is the very basis of David Douard’s work. The texts and poems he collects on the Internet are manipulated, transformed in order to become a vital flow, feeding into his sculptures. Through language as an ingredient, David Douard redefines space as hybrid and collective by injecting anonymous, chaotic, deviant, ill and frustrating poems in it. As he recreates an infected environment where the real world used to be, the fantasy brought by new digital technologies expands.
“Douard invited Romain Hamard to create the soundtrack of his solo
exhibition O’DA’OLDBORIN’GOLD (2019) à la Galerie Chantal Crousel. Hamard conceived the rooms as acoustic tricks, deliberately recording barely perceptible sounds, almost inaudible, silences, echoes of empty spaces and courtyards. Picking up on the artist’s interest for domesticity and intimacy, Hamard also added sounds collected from Instagram stories which he left to play in the background. After an hour, saxophone notes mark the time when the loop repeats itself. And everything starts over. Notes come from some YouTube tutorials meant to learn how to play an instrument, with all teaching parts and instructions removed.”
— Clément Delépine
David Douard has taken part in various solo and group exhibitions: Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin (2019); KURA. c/o Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, Milan (2018); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2014 and 2018); Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (2015 and 2017); Kunstverein Braunschweig (2016); Fridericianum, Kassel (2015); Sculpture Center, New York (2014); Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2014); Fondation d’entreprise Ricard, Paris (2012).
David Douard was in residency at The Academy of France in Rome – Villa Medici (2017-2018). His next solo show O’ Ti’ Lulaby will take place at Frac Île-de-France, le plateau, September 27 — December 13, 2020.
Hassan Khan is an artist, musician and writer. His recent major solo exhibitions include The Keys to the Kingdom, Palacio de Cristal, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2019) and Host, Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover. His next solo exhibition will be held at Centre Pompidou, Paris in Spring 2021. Both his Anthology of Published and Unpublished Writings (Koenig) and album SUPERSTRUCTURE EP (The Vinyl Factory) were released last year.
Hassan Khan is the winner of the Silver Lion at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017) and is a Professor of Fine Arts at Staedelschule, Frankfurt since 2018.
He mainly lives and works in Cairo, Egypt.
“What is it that is so comforting about the narrator’s voice? And is conflict always predicated on some sort of agreement? What does the hammer strike when it does? And why do I hate this word yet choose to speak of it? PURITY is a narrative sound piece including actors and musical interludes that gently touches on the latent precepts underpinning social and personal relations in our stratified world.”
— Hassan Khan