Alexandre Gérard

If you had to describe the raw material of Alexandre Gérard's oeuvre, you would have to talk about a state of floating consciousness, rather than a material in the strict sense of the term. His work is informed by stealthy or lasting moments of uncertainty, in the face of objects and situations which are not easy to understand. His videos, with their elementary scenarios (pretending to unintentionally let go of a sheet of glass in a queue of waiting people, or grasping the frightened startledness of a person seeing someone appearing when they thought they were alone), capturing those split seconds of faulty thought. They pounce on the spontaneous reaction of people troubled in their habits. Similarly, with his photographs, he stalks (or at least evokes) hesitation and incomprehension, more or less prolonged, in the face of an arrangement of letters. His work focuses on the insignificant, and on the strangeness of certain everyday situations. In a straightforward way, he seems to have fun finding a certain form of universality in the upsetting and absurd event. Translated by Simon Pleasance