Emmanuel Régent

Emmanuel Régent's work plays on discretion and deletion. The artist invariably prefers too little to too much. This decision enables him to create a discreet art which is in tune with the world, in a non-excessive way. Expectation, doubt, appearance/disappearance, and things that are delicate and imperceptible are all so many leitmotivs which fuel his work.
His drawings of people queueing and demonstrations hallmark a praxis which can also be seen as a position. Time wasted, production standstills, collective marches, and the absence of slogans (not to silence revolts but to express the infinite number of possibilities) attest to a remote stance in relation to the generalized rules of productivity.
The volumes, like the drawings, assert the equal value of the "project" and the object. The length of the process, its slowness, often, incidentally, lies at the heart of the finite work (Vice et Versa; a stone covered with a silver leaf, Pierre/Stone...). This time of making or not making has a central place in Emmanuel Régent's conceptual approach. It is combined without contradiction with an economy of gestures, and constructs an oeuvre with a silent, barely visible presence, like a bag forgotten in an exhibition venue (J'avais oublié/I'd Forgotten).