“In solemn and deep intervening regions, one sees the great stars of a spring night”

François Réau: “I always read poetry in parallel with my work. For this exhibition, I wanted to summon a literary or poetic work. For me, poetry brings the indeterminate. We are used to naming things. However, poetry unfolds a field where things can seem very precise in terms of sensation. Words bring openings, shifts. And this can speak to everyone, since it touches on universal things. That’s what I wanted to convene. The title is always important to me because it’s the first impression you get of an exhibition. The title does not precede the production but imposes itself in the creative process. It’s concomitant. There is no timeline. And I purposely say chronology because time is of the essence in my work. There are like loops. I read things and projects come up. In fact, the title may have already been there without my knowing it. When I start a project, it can make me think of a poem I’ve read, and then lead me to another. It’s endless. For this exhibition, I started with the drawings without having any idea of the title. I wanted to be in the making, with the desire to be in time, exactly the time of a second. So I broke down my talk into twenty-four images, twenty-four drawings, as if to talk about a rapid time, a second, but in which another longer narrative and a longer time could unfold.

© François Réau