The White Matter

By Mounir Fatmi

“All media are extensions of some human faculty - psychic or physical.”
Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is The Message, 1967

“At the very beginning of my career, when I was still living in Morocco, I was always fascinated by those useless materials: antenna cables, VHS tapes, obsolete typewriters. In a way, all these objects reassure me. All these archaic technologies express the end of something, a moment in our history. Most of all, they are about death. A great deal of my work consists of reanimating them, or rather accompanying their mutation from useful objects to useless ones and ultimately to simple archive documents.”
mounir fatmi, 2018

"In this exhibition, mounir fatmi looks at the impact of new technologies on memory, while questioning medium obsolescence. The evolution of technological and scientific progress led to a quick replacement of analog media caught up by digital images in a more and more virtual society. The artist therefore brings back to life anachronistic tools that used to be worshiped, like typewriters and antenna cables, in order to question the revolution of the image and the medium, which profoundly affected our perception of the world and distorted our memory. The title of the exhibition, The White Matter, refers to the white substance present in our brain and responsible for conveying information in the nervous system. This type of tissue is composed of millions of communication cables, each containing one long fiber called axon surrounded by a white substance, the myelin, which facilitates signal transmission. Like cities connected via telephone lines, these white cables connect neurons from one region of the brain to another. mounir fatmi’s white world invites us to immerse ourselves in this white matter, which is constantly evolving, up to the wireless connection system of our hyper-connected society."
Paola Soave, March 2019

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mounir Fatmi
• Release date: Nov 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005341411

Mounir Fatmi

mounir fatmi is a visual artist born in Tangier, Morocco in 1970. He constructs visual spaces and linguistic games. His work deals with the desecration of religious objects, deconstruction, and the end of dogmas and ideologies. He questions the world and plays with its codes and precepts under the prism of architecture, language and the machine. He is particularly interested in the idea of the role of the artist in a society in crisis. mounir fatmi's work offers a look at the world from a different glance, refusing to be blinded by convention. He brings to light our doubts, fears and desires.He has published several books and art catalogs including: The Kissing Precise, with Régis Durand, La Muette edition, Brussels, 2013, Suspect Language, with Lillian Davies, Skira edition, Italy, 2012, This is not blasphemy, in collaboration with Ariel Kyrou, Inculte-Dernier Marge & Actes Sud edition, 2015, History is not Mine, SF Publishing, Paris, 2015, and Survival Signs, SF Publishing, Paris, 2017. He has also participated in the collective book, Letter to a young Moroccan, edition Seuil, Paris, 2009.He has participated in several solo and collective exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world including: Mamco, Geneva, The Picasso Museum, Vallauris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, The Brooklyn Museum, New York, N.B.K., Berlin, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, MAXXI, Rome, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, the Hayward Gallery, London, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.His installations have been selected in biennials such as the 52nd and the 57th Venice Biennial, the 8th biennial of Sharjah, the 5th Dakar Biennial, the 2nd Seville Biennial, the 5th Gwangju Biennial and the 10th Lyon Biennial, the 5th Auckland Triennial, Fotofest 2014, Houston, the 10th and 11th Bamako Encounters, as well as the 7th Biennale of Architecture in Shenzhen.mounir fatmi was awarded several prizes such as the Cairo Biennial Prize in 2010, the Uriöt prize, Amsterdam, the Grand Prize Leopold Sedar Senghor of the 7th Dakar Biennial in 2006 as well and he was shortlisted for the Jameel Prize of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London in 2013.

Book preview

Foreword

The White Matter

Galerie Ceysson & Bénétière, Paris

All media are extensions of some human faculty - psychic or physical

Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is The Message, 1967

At the very beginning of my career, when I was still living in Morocco, I was always fascinated by those useless materials: antenna cables, VHS tapes, obsolete typewriters. In a way, all these objects reassure me. All these archaic technologies express the end of something, a moment in our history. Most of all, they are about death. A great deal of my work consists of reanimating them, or rather accompanying their mutation from useful objects to useless ones and ultimately to simple archive documents.

mounir fatmi, 2018

Galerie Ceysson & Bénétière is pleased to present the first solo show of mounir fatmi (1970, Tangier, Morocco) at the gallery, entitled The White Matter.

In this exhibition, mounir fatmi looks at the impact of new technologies on memory, while questioning medium obsolescence. The evolution of technological and scientific progress led to a quick replacement of analog media caught up by digital images in a more and more virtual society. The artist therefore brings back to life anachronistic tools that used to be worshiped, like typewriters and antenna cables, in order to question the revolution of the image and the medium, which profoundly affected our perception of the world and distorted our memory.

The title of the exhibition, The White Matter, refers to the white substance present in our brain and responsible for conveying information in the nervous system. This type of tissue is composed of millions of communication cables, each containing one long fiber called axon surrounded by a white substance, the myelin, which facilitates signal transmission. Like cities connected via telephone lines, these white cables connect neurons from one region of the brain to another. mounir fatmi’s white world invites us to immerse ourselves in this white matter, which is constantly evolving, up to the wireless connection system of our hyper-connected society.

According to communication theorist Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), media are the extensions of our senses, of our body. Each medium is like an extension of our brain, like a computer. mounir fatmi is revisiting this idea by proposing an installation made of a multitude of white cables, in reference to the long neuronal fiber extensions that transmit nervous influx. If the medium is the message, it is no wonder that mounir fatmi chose to focus his exhibition on the ultimate medium: the cable. Following McLuhan’s statement, the medium shapes the scope of the message and determines the scale of men’s relationships. The medium is therefore more important than the message. And technological progress constantly alters our relationship to the world, our way of thinking and our social behaviors, without encountering any resistance.

Spectators are unsettled by the white cables scattered in the exhibition space. Their eyes get lost in this labyrinth and desperately look for a beginning, a middle and an end. The white on white wall display suggests a disappearance, a white canvas or a screen on which spectators can project their own des, fears and hopes.

Paola Soave, March 2019.

Préface

The White Matter

Galerie Ceysson & Bénétière, Paris

«Tous les médias sont des extensions de certaines facultés humaines, psychiques ou physiques.»

Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is The Message, 1967

«Au tout début de ma carrière, alors que je vivais au Maroc, j'ai toujours été fasciné par ces matériaux inutiles: câbles d'antenne, bandes VHS, machines à écrire obsolètes. En un sens, tous ces objets me rassurent. Toutes ces technologies archaïques expriment la fin de quelque chose, un moment de notre histoire. Surtout, ils parlent de la mort. Une grande partie de mon travail consiste à les réanimer, ou plutôt à accompagner leur mutation d'objets utiles en objets inutiles, jusqu’à devenir des simples documents d'archives.»

mounir fatmi, 2018

La galerie Ceysson & Bénétière est heureuse de présenter « The White Matter », sa première exposition personnelle de mounir fatmi (1970, Tanger, Maroc).

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