Galerie RX, Paris

Pascal Convert

Les voix qui se sont tues

For his first exhibition at the RX Gallery, curated by Henri van Melle, Pascal Convert will present a corpus of works varying from low-relief to photography, to the crystallization of objects. These works are testimonials of the past, they put forward personalities, events or places that have been deprived of their essence. Through these multiple processes, Pascal Convert makes these "voices that have been silenced" inalienable and invites the viewer to ponder on the importance of memory and time. The exhibition will take place in the entire gallery, bringing an important series works in the three exhibition rooms.

"A voice that has been silenced can be close, or far away. That of a brother on the moor at sunset, where no one could find him. The voice of a journalist tracking the crimes committed by the Russian authorities, murdered in a stairwell as a birthday gift to Vladimir Putin. Those of Hazara children running down the cliffs of Bamiyan, waking up the giant protector Buddhas, their crystal laughter mocking the Taliban's mortifying madness.

It is a strange feeling to hear these voices from beyond the grave, still beating in my heart. They sometimes wake me up at night. I stay still for fear of scaring them. Their voices make what is lost even more real. Or imagined.

I don't know if these voices are soft and sonorous like those of "the loved ones that life exiled" but despite the glass globe that separates us and prevents my hand, a breath of warmth reignites a strange intimacy. And those who were moving away day after day, year after year become close once more.

The voices of muted bells, of eternal books, of burnt caves, of walls red with the blood of the Passion, mouths carrying the last breaths of life, you reanimate the hearth that unites us in the intimate and in the immense. We are no longer alone in silence. Their faces no longer collapse, their eyelids open, their lips are no longer afraid, the anguish goes away, their hair trembles in the wind. The red wall is no longer blind."

Pascal Convert

December 2022