For his second solo exhibition at Dürst Britt & Mayhew, Alexandre Lavet proposed to relocate all the packed artworks from the gallery’s storage to the main exhibition space. By this intervention he allows the audience to enter an environment full of ‘sleeping’ artworks, a moment of stasis, and of anticipation of what is hiding in the crates and bubblewrap.

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Lennart Lahuis and Alexandre Lavet share a strong interest in the fleeting and disposable nature of images and representation. In order to slow down the viewer’s gaze, their works constantly seem to hover on the verge of ephemerality, and even disappearance or absence. Their joint presentation at LISTE aims to engage the viewer to make an effort to question both the status of the exhibition space, the work of art and the fragility of the information we consume.

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At the Passerelle Contemporary Art Center, Everyday, I don’t. offers a seemingly empty space in which the artist stages a possible narrative for the exhibition space; a space that is waiting between installation and deinstallation. The negative impulse of the title could indeed indicate the artist’s decision to do nothing at all, which would explain this state of latent abandon. Alexandre Lavet invites us in the form of a paradox, to ask ourselves about the concept of artistic work, which is often imperceptible and difficultly quantifiable.

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At Deborah Bowmann, Alexandre Lavet and Nicolas Moreau are invited to exhibit together without knowing what the other will show. The result is a seemingly vacant space, forsaken by a fuzzy entity in a darkened space. The artworks evolve during the time of the exhibition, whether in terms of space or quantity.

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For this project, Alexandre Lavet borrows Herman Melville’s famous line “I would prefer not to” claimed by Bartleby, protagonist of the 1953 eponym short story. Transposed for the exhibition, it could symbolically make reference to the gallerist’s and the visitors’ expectations towards today’s artists who are supposed to appropriate the exhibition space with their interventions.
‘I would prefer not to’ opens up a double reading. Inside the gallery, the apparent denial to make artwork and from the outside, the presence of a form extolling the idea of rest and procrastination as a creative outcome.

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For his first solo exhibition at Dürst Britt & Mayhew, Alexandre Lavet invites audiences to reflect on the exhibition space’s hidden structures, which can be understood by strolling and slow observation. For the viewer this implies a change of perception, taking responsibility of one’s own gaze and the impossibility of a brisk pace. The ‘residues’, ‘gestures’ and ‘acts’ that Lavet proposes are eloquent remnants of a mode of living. Gentle and ineffable, the artist’s whispered rumours divert attention from the objects usually presented in an exhibition space. Thus a (re-)sensitised relationship with the ‘White Cube’ and similar modes of presentation is being established. Singular and indescribable as a cigarette smoked in the sun, the enjoyment of the moment offered is an articulate and sentimental experience of emptiness, a discreet celebration of bare necessities and the subtle art of doing next to nothing.

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For this art fair, Alexandre Lavet’s booth will contrast from his peers by its emptiness. Only some remnants and details will be shown to write a fiction that he could have already left the hall or even never came. Playing with the imposant blue color of the carpet, he will mostly display on it some white sculptures made of plaster, a drawing of the invoice of this particular material and elements from his own bedroom that caring and curious visitors could observe.
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With his series that he calls ‘Actes’, Alexandre Lavet establishes a list of possible gestures in the exhibition space. It may be as simple as sweeping the broom and leaving the collected dust in a corner or hanging a nylon thread from the ceiling at eye level. These interventions very slightly derail the framework that constitutes the exhibition space by revealing the trace of human activity that is usually hidden in this place. A trace, hardly surprising and barely visible, reveals this place and the stories that live inside it.

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The following project consists of sculptures barely visible in the fictional space that is the exhibition room. It involves the leaving of graphite nails, handmade staples or charcoal gravel lying around. The traces of construction that we often tend to remove are thus summoned and shown as artistic proposals.
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