Beyond Taxonomy
<p>The smell of bleach figures prominently in my first encounter with Chloé Quenum’s production. During her brief stay and exhibition at Mercer Union in Toronto in 2012, I witnessed the artist excavate an abstract image out of a black cloth by a process of chlorine reduction performed <em>en plein air</em> on the side patio of the gallery. She stressed the textile, washing and manipulating the weave until a new visual field was pulled into existence. The result resembled a rusty sun-print, fleshy yet serene, a skin stretched over a fourfold frame that stood upright by its own counterforces. It held in tension a paradox: did this variegated surface conjure marble, cold cuts, or pink clouds? It was a specimen unclassifiable in botanical terms. By skirting such binary diminishments, the work enacted an affinity with Roland Barthes’s description of The Neutral as “everything that baffles the paradigm.”…</p>
Authors: Sarah Robayo Sheridan
Artists: Chloé Quenum
Part of: TextWork
ISSN: 27269949