{"id":15619,"date":"2019-10-08T16:25:06","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T14:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.laboite-kilanigroupe.com\/?page_id=15619"},"modified":"2025-09-29T17:07:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T15:07:15","slug":"linspiration-a-t-elle-des-mains-ou-est-elle-somnambule-farah-khelil","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.laboite-kilanigroupe.com\/en\/linspiration-a-t-elle-des-mains-ou-est-elle-somnambule-farah-khelil\/","title":{"rendered":"L’inspiration a-t-elle des mains ou est-elle somnambule ? Farah Khelil"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_link_target=”_self” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” text_align=”left”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” el_class=”colLeftPub” width=”1\/2″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text el_class=”descriptionPub pub-1 textExpoInterne”]\n

Farah Khelil<\/span><\/strong>
\n\u00abL\u2019inspiration a-t-elle des mains ou est-elle somnambule ?\u00bb<\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n

June 2015 I December 2015
\nLa Bo\u00eete I Un lieu d\u2019art contemporain<\/p>\n

The formless <\/em><\/p>\n

Projected on the wall, the words are dots and the dots are gradually no longer words. Watching this white cloud detach itself from the black background, you almost forget that letters, words and sentences are nothing more than sets of lines, and that it is only after they have been assembled, composed and structured that they become meaningful. Thus torn from the realm of formlessness, the line mutated into writing clings to the body of the concept; the once free line takes on the more servile role of intermediary to the real – of partitioning the real.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Seeing precedes the word. Children look and recognise long before they can speak.<\/p>\n

But seeing also precedes the word, in the sense that it is sight that marks our place in the world: words tell us about the world, but words cannot undo the world that made them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The words used by John Berger to begin Voir le voir, a valuable work on the analysis of images, highlight the fact that understanding the world also means naming it. But in naming it, the world finds itself trapped in the grip of the mechanics used to express it, no longer offering the tools that would free it from its cogs. Liberating the word from the complexity of language to bring it back to the primitive magma that made its existence possible (and “undoing our ‘reality’ under the effect of other divisions”, as Roland Barthes would say) often means admitting to a certain crisis in communication, whether intimate or collective.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bruit, the video by Farah Khelil to which the first lines of this text refer, embodies a moment of crisis through the atomisation of language. On the wall where they are projected, the sentences are superimposed and from this piling up arises a noise that expresses not the sound, but the parasites that one would describe as a scrambled message, information in the process of being lost. Borrowed from a manual for learning Arabic script, the assembled words are so many normative sentences inculcated in the pupil that join, before the eyes of the viewer, the mute field of the indiscernible. In the same move to disrupt the transmission of the message, the artist has transferred the sentences that make up the textbook onto a set of Plexiglas plates. While the technique used here is similar to that used for Braille, the raised lines of the letters follow the curves of the Arabic alphabet, creating a form of communication originally intended for sighted people. The work is therefore addressed to the touch without using Braille and, by this means, is not connected to any valid system of language or transmission of information; its materiality therefore appears like a rail guiding the finger to the bankruptcy of discourse and ideas. Assuming that, as mentioned above, seeing precedes the word, we can agree that touch precedes seeing, and that here again Farah Khelil’s work is embodied not in the absence of form but in the embrace of formlessness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To paraphrase Georges Bataille, formlessness is that which escapes all categorisation and thereby thwarts understanding. We could then see the formless not in its material definition but in a moral occurrence, as the expression of an inability to shape or conform a subject. In a register that has more to do with the grotesque, this situation evokes the tribulations of Jojo, the main character in Gombrowicz’s novel Ferdydurke. Here, too, the school and its normalising apparatus collide with individual asperities, the author’s caricatural bias highlighting the absurdity of a societal requirement that is out of step with the spirit of youth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Although she uses different stylistic devices, Farah Khelil questions the implementation of education through the presentation of a postcard, visible in two different ways in the exhibition. Captioned “Through schooling, domestic and artistic education, the White Nuns prepare young girls to take their rightful place in the family home”, the card shows a class of schoolgirls, seated at their desks, under the “benevolent” auspices of the sisters. On the yellowed surface of this period setting, the artist intervenes by affixing two types of sign: white dots used as tutors for Arabic letters and a set of small crosses, drawn in black and organised in a circle, used in sewing for crochet stitching. In both cases, the strict ordering of the marks to be followed exacerbates the underlying structure of education, presented as a template shaping the child to enable him or her to occupy ‘his or her true place’ in the home – a domestic metonymy for society.<\/p>\n

In Farah Khelil’s work, and particularly in the ensemble of pieces that occupy the exhibition space at La Bo\u00eete, in Tunis, there is an oscillatory tendency ranging from the obscuration of the message – which is subjected to various alterations that make it nothing more than a blind signal – to its critical tension, metaphorically revealing the mechanics that underlie it. Navigating between these two states, the artist’s message acts on the gaze as a revelation of the instrumentalisation of language and seeing. The latest example of this is the video Point de vue, point d’\u00e9coute, dating from 2012. From the floor, where the camera seems to have been concealed, we watch the feet of women in heels twirl, stumble, stop and then start again, to the rhythm of the music and the inaudible, invisible exchanges. From this entropy of fragmented bodies, where nothing other than the intensity of a party is foreshadowed, the indefinable contours of formlessness are once again revealed – of a moment of voyeurism that cannot be read without short-circuiting all the cultural preconceptions that arise from it.<\/p>\n

And it is undoubtedly at this precise point that the artist’s work takes on its greatest significance, as it leaves open the possibility of a revolution in the way we look at things, through a critical exploitation of art that bypasses language. By escaping its conceptual predominance, Farah Khelil is spreading the beacons that enable us to avoid its ideological dead ends.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“If what is beautiful is the free man, then what is supremely beautiful is the man who shapes himself and the world down to its smallest corners, down to the formless.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Frank Balland<\/p>\n

L\u2019INSPIRATION A-T-ELLE DES MAINS OU EST-ELLE SOMNAMBULE\u00a0?<\/p>\n

Farah Khelil nous a habitu\u00e9s \u00e0 l\u2019inversion et au renversement des images, et, il faut s\u2019attendre au bouleversement continu avec elle. Apr\u00e8s les paysages enduits de blancs pour ne laisser appara\u00eetre qu\u2019un soup\u00e7on de couleur, voil\u00e0 qu\u2019elle d\u00e9place encore la question de nos libert\u00e9s sur un autre terrain, car il ne s\u2019agit plus d\u00e9sormais d\u2019\u00eatre libre mais dans quelle mesure nous avons prise sur la r\u00e9alit\u00e9. Farah Khelil ne se limite pas au visible, elle est attentive aux rapports cach\u00e9s, au non-dit, aux liens que peuvent \u00e9voquer les \u00eatres et les choses.<\/p>\n

A la mani\u00e8re de Diderot dans sa Lettre sur les aveugles, qui explique qu’un aveugle qui se met soudainement \u00e0 voir ne comprend pas imm\u00e9diatement ce qu’il voit, et qu’il mettra du temps \u00e0 faire le rapport entre son exp\u00e9rience des formes et des distances acquises par le toucher, et les images qu’il per\u00e7oit avec son \u0153il\u00a0; Farah Khelil de son c\u00f4t\u00e9, exp\u00e9rimente sur le plan artistique la question de nos sens. C\u2019est ainsi, qu\u2019elle arrive \u00e0 nous faire percevoir des sons musicaux en visionnant en silence les pas de danseuses. Comment \u00e9couter par le regard, v\u00e9ritable exercice qui nous am\u00e8ne \u00e0 d\u00e9couvrir une perception synesth\u00e9sique. Car, si tout apprentissage se fait manuellement entre l\u2019\u0153il qui regarde et les pieds qui rythment une cadence, on d\u00e9couvre que l\u2019on peut aussi \u00e9couter non pas le silence, mais l\u2019inaudible.<\/p>\n

Mais le dialogue des sens \u00a0de Farah Khelil ne s\u2019arr\u00eate pas l\u00e0, c\u2019est entre le visible et le tactile qu\u2019elle explore les limites. Partant d\u2019une m\u00e9thode, aujourd\u2019hui r\u00e9volue, d\u2019apprentissage de l\u2019\u00e9criture, apprentissage mim\u00e9tique puisqu\u2019il faut relier les points pour retracer les contours d\u2019une lettre et d\u2019une phrase. Cet exercice se transforme en exercice tactile et s\u2019\u00e9tend sur une vingtaine de phrases mod\u00e8les. Du visible au tactile, point de Braille, mais, simple pointill\u00e9 reprenant les points de liaison. Ainsi, joignant le visible au tactile, les planches se superposent\u00a0 au point de s\u2019embrouiller et de ressembler \u00e0 un nuage brouillant tout sur son passage.<\/p>\n

De plus, notons que l\u2019exposition est genr\u00e9e\u00a0dans la mesure o\u00f9 les arts manuels sont destin\u00e9s comme par essence aux filles dont on voit les mains laborieuses s\u2019activer. En revanche, le livre d\u2019apprentissage de l\u2019\u00e9criture semble destin\u00e9 \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9ducation des gar\u00e7ons.<\/p>\n

Dans un cas comme dans l\u2019autre, l\u2019\u00e9ducation reste une re-production, qui, en voulant affranchir l\u2019\u00eatre, l\u2019ali\u00e8ne davantage.<\/p>\n

H\u00e9dia Khadhar<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“La question du \u00ab point de vue \u00bb, de la doxa, voil\u00e0 qui est justement au fondement de l\u2019\u0153uvre de Farah Khelil (1980), autre artiste tunisienne
\ninvit\u00e9e \u00e0 pr\u00e9senter \u00e0 La Bo\u00eete ses travaux. \u00ab Int\u00e9ress\u00e9e par la p\u00e9riph\u00e9rie du regard et par la mise en image du mot, Farah Khelil interroge le point de vue comme condition d\u2019acc\u00e8s \u00e0 une r\u00e9alit\u00e9 \u00bb, indique la pr\u00e9sentation, par La Bo\u00eete, de son approche tr\u00e8s personnelle de l\u2019art : \u00ab Khelil d\u00e9tourne et s\u2019approprie objets, l\u00e9gendes, commentaires, citations et archives en installant dans ses \u0153uvres des protocoles de traduction, de
\ncodage, de distanciation et de c\u00e9cit\u00e9 en usant des jeux de dissimulation et de d\u00e9voilement du sens \u00bb.\u00a0Titre de son exposition dans les locaux du Kilani Group : \u00ab L\u2019inspiration a-t-elle des mains ou est-elle somnambule ?\u00bb Ce titre reprend une phrase du Journal de Paul Klee, peintre europ\u00e9en d\u00e9j\u00e0 cit\u00e9 plus avant et connu pour un voyage en Tunisie qui
\nconstituera pour lui une v\u00e9ritable exp\u00e9rience cr\u00e9atrice. Klee s\u2019interroge alors sur ce point crucial, l\u2019origine \u00ab pratique \u00bb de la cr\u00e9ation artistique. Est-ce l\u2019intuition, et le cerveau, qui dirigent la main de l\u2019artiste ? \u00c0 l\u2019inverse, est-ce la main de l\u2019artiste au travail qui \u00e9mule l\u2019intelligence se repr\u00e9sentant la forme trac\u00e9e ? Bref, l\u2019art est-il une activit\u00e9 manuelle, une activit\u00e9 mentale ou une activit\u00e9 tout \u00e0 la fois mentale et manuelle ? Prenant \u00e0 la lettre le questionnement de Klee, Farah Khelil en donne une double illustration, sans trancher, en proposant au spectateur diverses r\u00e9alisations plastiques structur\u00e9es par les concepts de cr\u00e9ation
\nmentale et de cr\u00e9ation manuelle, cela, dans le cadre d\u2019\u00ab une exposition construite \u00e0 partir de deux \u00e9l\u00e9ments d\u2019archives : un manuel d\u2019apprentissage \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9criture arabe et une carte postale ancienne de Tunis datant des ann\u00e9es 1910 et repr\u00e9sentant une classe de filles apprenant la broderie avec les S\u0153urs Blanches \u00bb, des religieuses chr\u00e9tiennes. Cette photographie, cette broderie, Khelil se les r\u00e9approprie puis les retravaille \u00e0 des fins artistiques. La photographie est agrandie et l\u00e9gend\u00e9e en braille. Une vraie broderie est tiss\u00e9e, l\u00e9gend\u00e9e au moyen d\u2019une phrase en arabe originelle traduite l\u00e0 encore en alphabet braille. Ces artefacts n\u00e9s d\u2019un glissement d\u2019images \u00e0 objets, l\u2019artiste les pr\u00e9sente ainsi sous une forme mat\u00e9rielle que le spectateur est invit\u00e9 \u00e0 palper, \u00e0 toucher physiquement. L\u2019art cose mentale, \u00ab chose mentale \u00bb ou cose digitale, \u00ab \u0153uvre des mains au travail \u00bb ? Chacun fera son opinion, avec ses propres gestes, sa propre palpation, sa propre intellection.”<\/p>\n

Paul Ardenne<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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