Kepler 186f, a mysterious and ambitious title. What can it possibly be hiding? Kepler is Johannes Kepler, a 16th-century German mathematician, astronomer and…
Kepler 186f, a mysterious and ambitious title. What can it possibly be hiding? Kepler is Johannes Kepler, a 16th-century German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. It was he who determined that the planets orbit the sun in ellipses. He also showed that their speed depends on their distance from the sun, and described the movement of each planet around ours. Kepler is also a NASA telescope launched into orbit in 2009, its mission: to detect exoplanets. It broke down in 2013. Kepler 186f is the first Earth-sized exoplanet located in the habitable zone of the star Kepler 186. It may have water in liquid form, a sine qua non condition for the presence of life as we know it. It was in April 2014 that Earth's false twin was revealed to the world, to our world. What does this have to do with the work of Kristof Everart, you may ask? Will he offer us his vision of this planet? Illustrations of its landscapes? Of its countryside? Its cities? Show us its inhabitants? Not really. Everart's latest works explore territories, their borders, their limits and their extent, the passage from one territory to another, from one space to another, from one concept to another. Kepler 186f is the fantasised other, the inaccessible other, the other where everything is unknown, everything is possible, everything is possibility. That is where the guiding thread of this exhibition lies. It lies beyond the overlaps and the Transformations of his exhibition at the Galerie des Ponchettes during the winter of 2009. It tells a story of experiences and feelings. To do so, Galerie Eva Vautier has been transformed; it now houses a new world. Circulation has been altered, new zones have been born. On the first level, the summit of a mountain, the crossing of a desert pass, and in front of it, blocking it, a luminous sculpture set down; a turn and here we are, facing large paintings, shifting landscapes, paint marks, clouds, nuances, forms to be distinguished, inviting contemplation. An atmosphere between two states, sobriety, lightness, an abstraction on the edge of figuration that tells us a surrealist story, a construction of chance decided by the Architect of this world. Upstairs, air, drawings, trees suspended in mid-air, carved wood, a knot of circulation leading to treasures placed here and there, a light score, music improvised by Dorian Casacci, the musician-artist invited by Kristof Everart, who offers a reading and a sonic illustration of this enigmatic world. A world where, as in Twin Peaks, "there is always music in the air" and appearances can be deceptive. More than an exhibition, Kepler 186f is a proposition, a crossing of familiar territories which a shift renders unfamiliar, close and distant, within reach of hand and mind. A plastic reflection on what surrounds us, on our perception, our apprehension and our sensations. Anne-Sophie Lecharme