At the Centre Pompidou Metz, Cerith Wyn Evans presents a breathtaking in situ installation. He deploys the Japanese idea of ??the borrowed garden, or “Shakkei”, which considers the integration of the Zen garden into the landscape that surrounds it, in order to offer the eyes the illusion of an infinite continuity that it is then only borrowing. The artist erases the material boundaries between the works and the walls of the museum. What space would have been more suitable than this one, whose bay window walls offer us a breathtaking view of Metz, which then seems to extend the room? The assimilation to the garden is also explained by the free wandering of the visitor in a unique room, whose works come to sculpt the space. More than a place to “visit”, Wyn Evans’ exhibition becomes a place of life, where the artist suggests, with a wry smile, to come and chat with friends. Far from the meditation of the necropolis – according to Merleau-Ponty’s expression – adopted by museum visitors and reinforced in the era of mobile phones, Lueursempruntes is a manifesto for an experience of the present, a sine qua non condition for an encounter with the works.

Excerpt from the article by Gae Blu Infuso published in N°112 of the magazine Art Absolument. Published on January 15, 2025

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