(Version Française)

Walking a Tightrope, a bad title... That is what I thought at the beginning. Then, I realized very quickly that it fitted, as they say, that it matched. I remembered that moment when Michel, the Godard's A Bout De Souffle character, reads a newspaper while smoking a cigarette in front of a poster that says « live dangerously, until the end! ». In that scene, there is obviously something that makes image, and there is also Michel and his careless approach. For a start, « Walking and making image » is a good way to describe Bruno Silva's work.

 

And what about offhandedness? One could a priori assume that there is some. But there's none, I'm contrariwise convinced that there is a lot of worry involved, worry meaning both ability to question oneself and also a certain intranquility. The reason why is that Bruno Silva's proposals (this is the name I would like to give them) seem to regularly appear just like questions do, that is to say with this kind of suspension and opening, but also with a perspective, an attachment point. To say it in a different way and describing a proposal that I personally like in the meantime; an ensemble of marbles are dropped on the floor, then they move more or less away from their impact point which is symbolized by a circle that surrounds the space. This means that it stands for a visible and fix sign that shares their life being with more unpredictable and discreet existence of the marbles and their path.

 

 

Here it is! That is what one had to go through to end up here: to say the discretion. Because there is discretion in this work, or it is rather discretion that crafts it. This is a form of withdrawal which is not an isolation, a presence that shows itself in the negative space. I think that one of the main things that concern Bruno Silva's proposals is the topic of presence. This question converts itself in many forms that are easily recognizable and identifiable, the game, the frame, the map, the limit, the path, etc... This is also this strange form of presence that gives proposals their poetic outline. For instance, one can easily feel it with this video that is playing on a computer based on itself in an unusual way, turned one quarter on its side, and the screens shows a kite that seems to play with the borders of the screen. Just like this proposal, the exhibition Walking a Tightrope is the story of a balance, I would even say of the balance's allegory.

 

 

by Martial Déflacieux about the exhibiton "Na Corda Bamba", September 2015