Despite Territories

Agathe de Bailliencourt is a painter, working in situ as well as on canvas and paper. Her works are characterized by repetition and rejoicing, and a more or less aggressive pressure to be as tangible as possible. While her installations relate directly to the actual site and its context, the work in the studio is linked to her own experience, directly and spontaneously.

Her work on canvas and paper addresses imperfection and failure, as well as disentanglement, progress and exultation. In the installations, it seems that removing physical limits is helping her to achieve sovereignty with regard to control of other boundaries, systems and schools of thinking. These two poles have become to mutually influence and inform each other, as "an irreconcilably dialectical journey" (A. Abdullahsani, introduction), which demands much ?un-learning" and "re-learning". Agathe de Bailliencourt seeks an image of liberation that derives from this effort and a confrontation between different rationalities: the rationality of society, which very basically speaks of function, and the rationality of art - which speaks of everything else.

"Despite Territories" is an attempt to arrange this general direction within the form of a printed book. The underlying relations become evident in this publication, representing and confronting a selection of both installations and her work on canvas and paper. "Despite Territories" is not least being published in conjunction with Bailliencourt's first large solo exhibition in New York City, where the regarding paintings, all full of hardly printable colors, will be on view.

Produced as a limited edition artist's book, "Despite Territories" features an introduction by Amelia Abdullahsani, an essay by Shaheen Merali and an interview with the artist by Madelon Fleminger.