Our Red Devils, Our Drifting Upheavals

Mendes Wood DM presents Julien Creuzet’s first solo exhibition {{B:Our Red Devils, Our Drifting Upheavals }}at the gallery in Brussels.

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, 1929

A red and black presence emerges like an ectoplasm, a visible emanation that serves both as an introduction and a guide for the entire exhibition. At once provocative, sacred, masked, horned, shrouded in mystery and adorned with mirrors, the figure never fully reveals itself. It originates from the Martinican carnival; the Red Devil roams the streets like a festive spectre. Its annual appearance during Martinique’s Mardi Gras opens a symbolic portal to ancient worlds buried in the folds of history, to hybridised beliefs and exiled tales. Although seemingly local and specific, this figure resonates across other territories such as Haiti, Brazil and countries surrounding the Gulf of Guinea. Julien Creuzet takes this carnivalesque figure as his point of departure, probing both an archaeology of the masked body and of contemporary myth. His intention is not simply to represent the Red Devil, but to extend its evocative power and potential for transformation. The exhibition space is conceived as a whole, as an artwork in itself – an immersive environment. Within it, the artist has assembled a constellation of fragmented films, wallpapers and sculptures to form a single narrative body – or is it a shattered poem. Singing in both Creole and French, Julien Creuzet’s voice weaves an essential sonic layer, conjuring multiple presences throughout the gallery. Our Red Devils, Our Drifting Upheavals opens, unsettles and invents. By reflecting on our contemporary relationship with multiple narratives, the official History, ancient spiritualities and contemporary myths, the exhibition cultivates a productive tension that reignites some of art’s most fundamental purposes. Mendes Wood DM 13 Rue des Sablons / Zavelstraat 1000 Brussels, Belgium Visiting hours: Tue – Sat, 11am – 7pm mendeswooddm.com