The Centre is pleased to be hosting the first major solo exhibition by Paris-based British artist Charlotte Moth, offering the chance to explore her recent work, including two new pieces.

The departure point of Moth’s work, the travelogue, embarked on in 1999, has developed over the course of her travels into an extensive collection of analogue photographs that bear a close relationship with architecture, space and light. This exhibition explores her practice through works in a range of mediums such as film, photography, sculptural, installations.

The title of the exhibition is taken from a text written by Roland Barthes in a key period for his work – not long before his sudden death – and hints at repeated disappointments, hidden endeavours. While aspiring to the preparation of a novel (The Preparation of the Novel was the title of the course he taught), Barthes gradually turns away from literature, looking instead to poetry, in particular the haiku, as a possible alternative: beauty of the flower about to wither, “presence at the edge of absence” (Antoine Compagnon, tr. Rosalind Krauss); a perspective that also recalls the way Barthes understood photography. Between subjectivity and the truth of the moment, the haiku and photography both produce the impression – but not the certainty – “this has been”; an effect of reality. Whereas photography is compelled by its nature to show in exhaustive detail, however, the haiku uses a purged, elliptical form that lets the essence of what is meant show through; the form, the gesture alone give access to the truth.

Nestling between these two practices, the work of Charlotte Moth (*1978) radiates modest grace and benevolent curiosity for obsolete, apparently lost objects and places where time stands still. The departure point of Moth’s work, the travelogue, embarked on in 1999 focused then mainly on English seaside resorts, but has developed over the course of her travels into an extensive collection of analogue photographs that bear a close relationship with architecture, space and light. While many of these photos remain invisible, as if unfinished, others are used in installations, exhibitions, plastic works and films – projects on which other artists, theorists and critics have frequently collaborated, appropriating the images for their own interpretations and fictions. The result is processes of exchange, collages and unassuming, affectionate juxtapositions that constantly seek out “the to-ing and fro-ing of image and experience” (MOTH). For her exhibition at the Centre Charlotte Moth has invited Peter Fillingham and Falke Pisano to take part; two artists who have collaborated with her on numerous occasions and whose practices, although very different from her own, are closely related to her work.

Charlotte Moth was born in 1978 in Carshalton (UK) and lives in Paris since 2007. She first studied Fine Arts at UCCA – University College for the Creative Arts – Canterbury, then sculpture at the Slade School of Art in London, before completing her training at the Jan van Eyck in Maastrich. After residences at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2007-2008) and Serralves Foundation in Porto (2011), she is in 2012 at Fieldwork Marfa, Texas, and then Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart. Parallel to various curatorial activities and numerous collaborations, Charlotte Moth held solo shows – among others – at Araújo Porto Institute (Fundaçao de Serralves and SONAE), Porto, at the gallery Carlier Gebauer, Berlin, at the Musée départemental d’art contemporain in Rochechouart, at Pied-à-Terre, San Francisco, and at the Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg. She also participated in several group shows, including venues such as the Dallas Biennial, Cole Gallery, London, Kunsthalle Basel and the synagogue in Delme.

Curated by Emilie Bujès

Cover image: Charlotte Moth, Sculpture made to be filmed, 2012. Courtesy of the artist and Marcelle Alix, Paris