Une seconde d'éternité

06/22/2022 01/16/2023

Bourse de Commerce

Curated by

Emma Lavigne

For this new season bringing together summer and winter, the need for the here and now, and the search for the infinite, elusive though it may be, Une seconde d’éternité (A Second of Eternity) takes visitors on a journey inspired by the question and experience of time, through a selection of artworks from the Pinault Collection.

The exhibition is gradually taking over all the spaces of the Bourse de Commerce, beginning with the Felix Gonzalez-Torres — Roni Horn exhibition and OPERA (QM.15) by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, which have been presented since April. It brings together the works of some twenty artists.

The account created here through the exhibited works explores the polysemous nature of present time, in turn suspended, fleeting, inhabited by spectral presences, and traversed by the theme of loss and incarnation. This cycle borrows its title from a 1971 work by Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers, Une seconde d’éternité (d’après une idée de Charles Baudelaire), a film that brings to life for one short moment the presence of the artist through the simple portrayal of his signature. The work sets the tone for an exhibition where the intensity of the presence of bodies and images is set against their fleeting nature. As Charles Baudelaire said, it is a question of finding “in one second the infinity of joy” and contemplation.