Reverse reality

Artists from the collection: ALP le collectif, Jean-Paul Albinet, Berdaguer & Péjus, Hélène Delprat, Jean Dieuzaide, Nathalie du Pasquier, Jason Glasser, Eve Gramatzki, Michel Kanter, Bertrand Lavier, matali crasset Bernard Moninot, François Rouan, Elsa Werth

Have you ever wondered whether the world around you is real? This existential question arises all the more in the art world, where everything is illusion and representation.

From a scientific and biological point of view, reality doesn't actually exist: it's just a mental construct. In this sense, the world around us as we perceive it is merely a representation of reality made possible by our senses and our brain's interpretation of this information.

If there are as many perceived realities as there are living beings, then each artist is in a position to express his or her own perception of reality. The artists' vision is often augmented by personal, philosophical and social questions. Playing with distorted representations, visual enigmas, modified supports and superimposed images, the works proposed by Les Abattoirs, Musée - Frac Occitanie Toulouse (Frac: Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain) are definitely out of the ordinary. They defy reality in their form, appearance and representation.

At first glance, these works may seem strange. They are not what we expect to see. With hindsight and observation, when our gaze adjusts to the vision proposed by the artist, the subtleties that make them special are revealed.

In this way, the artists seek to question our own perception of our environment, and our relationship with others.

ALP le collectif's quirky, amusing work La réalité n'existe pas (Reality doesn't exist) introduces the whole subject of the exhibition, a perpetual interplay between reproduction and illusion, reality and representation.

In this way, the exhibition questions our relationship with reality in an ever-changing world.