Gabriel Folli, being there or the question of place *
Commenting on the “perpetual evolution, never definitive” of her town of Cergy, Annie Ernaux notes in Le vrai lieu, published in 2014, that "because of these rapid changes, it seems to me that I'm more inclined to note what's going to disappear, these faces, these moments. Because, in the end, until I've written about something, it doesn't exist." Is Gabriel Folli motivated by the same dynamic, and is he led to describe all the places he has remembered or crossed that he has to draw in order for them to exist, if not to endure? Something of a relationship with time and space is rooted in his approach, forming its structure and justifying its validity. A posture similar to Georges' for his six-year project, listing twelve places he described first on the spot, then from memory, entitled Lieux, published posthumously in 2022.
To place Gabriel Folli's art in the context of these two key figures in the contemporary history of literature is simply to underline the commonality of practices that underlie his work. First of all, there's the idea of territory, then the notion of inventory, and finally the desire to turn the particular into the universal. In his work, the artist delights in blending materiality and temporality in the creation of drawings that record the actual experience of a presence, if not the memory of it, then of a reading, a film or an image. In all cases, it's a sensitive feeling that has left its mark, and which imposes itself on him as a cardinal vector in the very principle of creation.
As if echoing this, Gabriel Folli's work favors the use of paper supports that he finds here and there, most often used and laden with history, but also all kinds of photographic images, anonymous, familiar or made by himself in the course of his peregrinations. These are all materials that carry with them a relationship to time, and whose recycling shows the extent of this relationship. The way he composes with them, through assemblage or collage, instructs them to the order of palimpsest sets that reinforce their memorial dimension. His use of charcoal, compressed or not, and Indian ink, more or less diluted, to cover them gives them a more or less profound mental blackness. The writing that usually accompanies his work – simple snippets, notes or short narratives – also provides contextualization through the play of clues it delivers. Folli's art is part of a metamorphosis in terms of the foundations of all creation, between past, present and future.
The artist doesn't tell a story; narrative is not his norm. He juxtaposes fragments of reality, playing on their iconic difference, their format, their plastic quality, which he enhances, redacts, to constitute a whole, either in the uniqueness of a single form, or in the explosion or deployment of a heterogeneous composition. For him - as Annie Ernaux wrote in La place – “the fragment is really important”, because each of his works is the result of research and is based on the idea of construction.
The notion of a construction site, or even a laboratory, characterizes his exhibitions, as they configure a fallow space, open to the imagination of the viewer, who can find material for wandering. Gabriel Folli draws us into his world without forcing us into any kind of imposed adventure; he invites us to exercise our attention to see beyond what's before our eyes. Reality is much more than a simple observation of reality ; it is the fruit of all our cognitive experiences. It is this reality that the artist strives to give form to in his work. A reality embodied on the sensitive plate of his drawings.
There is something photographic at work in Gabriel Folli's work. There's even something filmic about the end-to-end images he puts together, which are sometimes displayed in large friezes to be traversed, like a travelling shot in cinema. Between the multiplication of shots and the lateral continuum, what's at stake is nothing less than the awareness of being there. Here and now. At this precise moment when the artist achieves this ineluctable alchemy of time and space. Because, ultimately, that's the reason for his approach, the quest for permanence.
Philippe Piguet, art critic and curator
* Preface to my artist's book Le bleu de l'archive, 2024. With the support of Maison de la Culture d'Amiens and DRAC Hauts-de-France.