Telofossils , the French artist Grégory Chatonsky’s first major solo exhibition in Asia, was jointly arranged through the efforts of independent Canadian curator Sylvie Parent and Taiwanese curator Shuling Cheng. To complement his own works, Chatonsky invited Canadian sculptor Dominique Sirois to accompany him to Taipei two months prior to the exhibition. With the sponsorship of many organizations and the co-operation and assistance of the Museum of Contemporary Art, they began engaging in exchange as artists-in-residence and collaborating together on the creation of on-site artwork.
Although most of the works displayed in this exhibition are all new pieces, the themes, content and atmosphere of the exhibition are intentionally designed to allow viewers to pass through space and time to a distant future where humanity has already disappeared. Spectators take on the role of the archaeologists of future generations, and, through examination of and contact with remnants of the past, are able to puzzle over the cultural life and environment of what we currently term “contemporary”. In order to construct an unusual on-site situation and spatial ambience, the exhibition integrates material objects, spatial installations and multimedia projections. In addition, sound artist Christophe Charles, who is currently residing in Japan, was specially commissioned to create a soundscape to fill the spaces of the Museum of Contemporary Art to further strengthen the objective of creating a truly multi-sensory exhibition experience.
The exhibition is oriented around a trilogy of works titled “Destruction”, dealing with the end of the world. Following the unfolding of the exhibition itself the “End of the World Crisis” appears first and is an overture to destruction, composed of a series of economic, ecological and political crises. “At the End of the World”, the second movement, reveals the different forms and processes of destruction through four individual pieces in two exhibition rooms. Within the vast emptiness of Room 201, in a quiet yet oddly sinister atmosphere the third piece “Imagination of the End of the World” is displayed. This is an installation comprised of real objects—made on-site—and futuristic multimedia, which transforms the gallery into a hypothetical simulation of an archeological excavation site in a future where humanity is already extinct. This highly immersive, sensory exhibition experience is perhaps a little like an alternative chapter in an apocalyptic novel or film. The narrative is structured so that true/false, genuine/fictitious elements are mingled together, and so that spectators wandering through the exhibition will find it difficult to tell fact from fiction.
The Telofossils exhibition highlights the specific narrative mode, existentialist thought and crucial philosophical questions that characterize the contemporary technological age. From it, we can glimpse the various faces of “Destruction” that are visible in contemporary civilization. For instance, in this age of information and the internet, the weakening of mankind’s tangible existence and the deterioration of values is a social reality; the media obsessively focus on consumption, war, natural and human disasters and likewise manifestations of our civilization; moreover, the role and meaning of “memory” in the technological era is becoming ever more ambiguous. Standing before the exhibited “Telofossils” exhibition, viewers can contemplate the diverse perspectives of a “future archaeology.”