GESTE Paris

UtOpium, GESTE Paris
2 Novembre — 21 December 2024
Naomi BCook, Nikhil Chopra+Shivani Gupta, Kwama Frigaux, Jason Gardner, Jorge Rosano Gamboa, Ntshepe Tsekere Bopape(Mo Laudi), Hetain Patel, Daphane Park, Antoine Ribaut + Betsy Green, Valery Schatz, Jura Shust, Fiona Valentine Thomann. GESTE Collection artists: Kwoma Kollective, Celine Excoffon, Mark Geffriaud, Tua Aiari Kari, Man Ray, Zieromuko
Curation by Shin-Dõ

The beginning of November each year marks the opening of a new exhibition by Geste. Founded in 2016 by artist Shiva Lynn Burgos, Geste has since continued as a curated annual show around a central theme, coinciding with Paris Photo and the Month of Photography. It is no wonder, since the name itself “Geste” draws inspiration from Vilém Flusser’s concept of the photographic gesture, which delves into the complex interaction between the photographer, the camera, and the resulting image, each part bound by its own intentions and constraints.

In a way, the exhibition Geste is also an interaction—this time between the various participating artists, the curators, the themes, and, of course, the space itself. Set in the intimate setting of Burgos’s apartment, she skillfully reinstates the intellectual and artistic spirit of the Salon, so familiar and dear to the Parisian public. In addition to the artworks, Geste organizes a series of talks, bringing together an intriguing group of collectors, photography enthusiasts, and academics.

This year’s theme, UtOpium, cleverly merges the words “Utopia” and “Opium.” Against the current backdrop of technological development, one cannot help but feel the intoxicating allure of progress. More and more data is produced in such colossal amounts as to compensate for a growing emptiness born of relentless digital expansion. Some works address this metaphor directly, such as Kwama Frigaux’s Blisterpack series, featuring tapestries woven from discarded medication packaging. Similarly, Naomi B. Cook’s Not Just Only Fans sharply alludes to the pervasive presence of data in our daily lives with a flickering lamp that follows the rhythm of a seven-minute “carnal act” easily found online, emphasizing the addictive search for human intimacy.

Other works turn inward, drawing on ancestral knowledge rather than looking to the future. Jura Shust’s video Neophyte III: On the Eve of the Shortest Night explores the relationship between ritual and escapism by delving into the magical traditions of the Slavic summer solstice celebration. Jason Gardner presents a cohesive body of work exploring traditional ritual masks from Greece and Portugal, used in carnival processions. Jorge Rosano Gamboa’s Sikuamecha is an energetically charged work born from the artist’s creative takeover of abandoned masks discovered in Michoacán’s artisan workshops. The artist shifts the shapes of these masks meant to symbolize shapeshifters.

Light itself becomes a medium in two complementary series. Photographer Betsy Green and astronomer Antoine Ribaud capture a moment of rare cosmic harmony—a solar eclipse—by pairing an antique 19th-century plate camera with a 21st-century telescope. Shiva Lynn Burgos, on the other hand, captures not the moment when the moon covers the sun, but rather the fleeting instant when sunlight pierces through a small opening in the Saint Francis of Assisi Hermitage cave, where the saint spent his solitary time, creating a moment of divine illumination.These pieces, along with many others in UtOpium, offer a prolific space for projection and perception between the viewers and the works, reflecting a dialogue on our evolving relationship with technology, tradition, and the human desire for meaning. Ultimately, UtOpium embodies an insatiable yearning for hope—a hope for a future where these elements might coexist harmoniously.

Head image : Vue d’exposition / Exhibition view, Geste, UtOpium 2024.

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