GREETINGS FROM COMMONVILLE
A trans-artistic project conceived by LUCIEN MOREAU
Commonville is a town. Or rather, a 'prototype community of tomorrow,' although it belongs to an indefinite and, at times, impossible past. It seems to be located in the Null Prefecture, more precisely in Standardshire, in the intermediate period between the decline of Monochrome and the rise of Technicolor. At least that is what the extraordinary documents found fortuitously in an unlikely briefcase tell: postcards and photographs that summarize the story of a traveler engaged in an interdimensional diplomatic expedition.
From the texts written on the back of the postcards emerges a portrait of a disorienting city, a paradoxical non-place, a utopian community over which looms a tremendous threat, what the inhabitants of Commonville call 'The Great Final Distortion,' or 'The Great Singularity'. Commonville is an island of bureaucratic austerity mixed with the psychedelic flavor of dream, populated by a phosphoric enclave of cultures, ethnicities, and visions; a modernist urban core dominated by brutalist and metabolist architecture, overlooking a dreamlike territory.
Commonville sums up the loss of all reference points. In Commonville anything is possible. In Commonville a past that never happened coexists with an impossible future. From the found documents it is possible to understand how the town of Commonville belongs to a surreal, alternative, uchronic dimension. The anthropic geography of Commonville, seemingly engaged in a struggle for the distillation of color, seems to come from everything and move toward the horizon of nothingness.
'Greetings From Commonville' is a trans-artistic experiment conceived by Lucien Moreau in the form of a historical forgery. The artworks are detailed digital collages, born from the reworking of old photographs from every era, every place and every cultural context. Of note is the foundational reference to the history of modernist, functionalist, metabolist and brutalist architecture, which forms the core of Commonville's urban personality and its creator. Dwellings and inhabitants, which determine each other. Does the form of architecture determine the form of those who live in it or, rather, the opposite? Identity, dream, pattern, function, color, memory, bewilderment, utopia are just some of the key words that describe this ethnography of paradox.
The exhibition itinerary consists of a variable number of pictures, presented on a large rigid support (140x90 cm) and accompanied by the relative enlargement of each postcard, front and rear, on which the visitor will be able to explore the narration of "Greetings from Commonville".
PAST EXHIBITIONS
Ferrara (Italy) • Palazzo della Racchetta • 2022, Aug 25 – Sep 26
Milano (Italy) • NAC 2019 Novegro Arte Contemporanea • Parco Esposizioni Novegro • 2019, May 10 – 11 – 12
Bologna (Italy) • Odeon Cinema Gallery • 2019, Apr 6 › May 4
LUCIEN MOREAU
Conceptual artist. Writer. Musician. Dreamer. He works as a freelance graphic designer for innovative products, unconventional companies and cultural projects, realizing the concept of some events and shows in Bangkok, Montreal, Taipei, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Krakow. Solitary son of the Beat Generation and the avant-gardes, he joins a metaphysical congregation of circus performers called TEATROSCIENZA, founded by Alex Gezzi. At the same time, he produces some experimental films and numerous music videos (00156, AMYGDALA, TOTENTANZ, MIN GRN, OVER THE WALL, THE HRÖNIR VESSEL, THE DROP). He plays piano, synthesizers and digital devices, creating multiple albums in different genres such as classic contemporary, electronic and minimalist. He composes soundtracks for films, theater and art installations. He collaborates, live and in the studio, with national and international artists of any poetic nature, giving life to numerous projects, among which MOLOCH stands out: an irreverent electro-prog epic with industrial tones, conceived together with Gianni Venturi. In 2015, together with the artist and tarologist Giacomo Marighelli, he founded the Null Movement and spent two days tied up in a work of art that he himself shaped, as an act of “ephemeral confession”. He breathes, too. He often drinks water. He was born on an island and will die on an island. Meanwhile, he seeks new ways to explore the INNER.
