Back from one of his trips abroad, Charley Case has brought a snake with him, enclosed in his stomach. Could it be the Kundalini? Wrapped around the base of his spinal cord, this formidable source of energy is capable of activating the conscience in a flash. That is the background, but rest assured: there is no need to master the Hindu or Buddhist nomenclature in order to penetrate the artist’s rich and protean world. Charley Case is by no means a New Age theoretician: his references to the secular culture of India are always skilfully blended with humour and fun. For instance, the parasite, which in the end exited through his lower body, took on the form of a luminous snake (“The return”). Additionally, he instils new energy into previous research: a character with arms and legs spread, based on the famous drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, which he used formerly to produce a troubling human roasting, is reinterpreted in many different ways, as a symbol of energy and geometry. The snake unites the space from bottom to top: at the top of the staircase, the artist has produced a “Galactic Vortex” – earth deposited in concentric circles on glass, giving the effect of a huge x-ray. The wheel (chakra in Sanskrit) is found throughout the exhibition, for instance the immense wall painting which greets visitors: this spiral consisting of a multitude of humanoids, the signature of the artist, imbues the wall with new symbolic and imaginary dimensions. In a successful attempt to renew a venerable genre, Charley Case has also produced two tondi, awash with the same crowd of unrestrained characters.
However enigmatic it may be, the title of the exhibition – which is also the title of a series of twelve new videos – should, however, be taken literally: “NOW WON”, the present has won. The terms are anacyclic, suggesting the idea of balance. While his film [Entre] explored the concepts of duality, and “Out of Time” erased the idea of duration, Charley Case intends to concentrate on the “here and now” with “NOW WON”. “When the past and future disappear, the present can be fully embraced”. The image of this newly-found unity is the sphere. From this point of view, “Antenna Siesta” embodies the whole meaning of the exhibition. A direct descendant of the now famous “ Nemawashi Cacahuète”, the installation consists of a semi-sphere made from a rigid, translucent synthetic material combined with nine short films projected onto a rectangular block, three by three. While the peanut encouraged people to move within its organic form, “Antenna Siesta” invites them to renew their strength through immobility. Seated cross-legged or curled up in the foetal position, spectators find themselves in a place between heaven and earth, where the sound is deformed. Does not all the unhappiness of people come from their inability to remain at rest, in a sphere? Placed in a public arena (the Galeries de la Reine in Brussels), “Antenna siesta” has aroused very different reactions, recorded by a discrete camera attached vertically, whose images are part of the nine films projected. Diogenes, whose wisdom was probably not unconnected with life in a circular habitat, is seen alongside sewer workers coming out of the earth, and the artist’s young son, filmed shortly after his birth through a deforming globe. The editing, which is random in appearance only, manages to correspond the images of a cobra in its basket with that of the semi-sphere occupied by a visitor.
The idea of the couple permeates “NOW WON”, more to evoke complementarity (however problematic this may be sometimes) than duality. In “Pi au Carré”, the camera focuses on the fingers of two pianists, a man and woman, during their performance of a Rachmaninov four-hand sonata: they both devote themselves entirely to the common performance while remaining in their separate worlds – the fusion is created via the music. This complementarity can be found in a number of drawings and watercolours produced by Charley in collaboration with his partner, Ana: from the formless stains she deposits on the paper at the start, he produces images that are sometimes amusing, sometimes troubling. The quasi-psychoanalytical or even therapeutic dimension of the gesture speaks volumes. The series produced in this way are described by the artist as “oracles” in which the present consists of the past and future.
Faithful to his habits, Charley Case collaborated on a number of works with other artists and technicians. One of the “oracles” will be turned into an electronic version, accessible online. But the most spectacular collaboration is without question the exchange with the painter Robert Quint which resulted in an impressive triptych entitled “Zeitenbummler”, the inter-temporal stroller. Directly inspired by Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights”, the three paintings develop a complex iconography where the river of Paradise might possibly evoke the Ganges. The participants in the trance party featured on the upper part appear curiously to be destined for Hell: should the inclusion of the interpretation by Charley Case of Brueghel’s “Fall of Icarus” be seen as a warning to those who fly too close to the sun? The same theme is developed in a short film filmed in super 8 using psychedelic colours, where a Sadhu, in charge of ensuring that passers-by sample local hallucinogenic specialities, is playing with a human skull attached to a picket. Elsewhere, death itself, in the grip of an irrepressible fit of giggles, appears to be trapped forever in a trip that could prove fatal. “En-transe”: that is the title of the book-portfolio consisting of 24 lithographs and seven films, accompanied by poems by Emmanuèle Sandron. Published by Bruno Robbe, the book enjoys a special presentation here.
Traditionally seen as the refuge for shaman ceremonies, the “Babel tepee” planted in the gallery by Charley Case is indirectly linked to Bosch and Brueghel in its evocation of a theme dear to both painters. Carried along by their frantic race to reach the summit, the humans on the canvas gradually turn into a shapeless mass. Their inevitable fall, painted inside, can be seen through the canvas on the outside. Salvation is to be found in the present moment, tinged with magic, which the artist tirelessly pursues in his photographs: the cloud-carrier, the diver frozen in the instant in which his body becomes a sphere, and the child hiding behind the headless Buddha.
Pierre-Yves Desaive
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