On rue Ontario, on the third floor of number 916, Espace Maurice is bubbling on the occasion of the opening of Sterile, by Caroline Schub. The multimedia artist, originally from Hudson Valley, New York, and the gallery’s founder and curator, Marie Ségolène C. Brault, converse warmly with visitors — the torpor of a sweltering evening heat wave did not get the better of a keen curiosity about the self-portraits that litter the floor and the walls. The few photographs and sculptures shown thus challenge our eyes and our conscience because of their striking nature: blood, urine, sex, bones, flesh, infusions, syringes. It is, in fact, a real stripping to better tell what is not seen at first sight.
“All of this fermented in my body during the pandemic, explains Caroline Schub, suffering from a chronic illness. Even though I already published a book in 2021, it took me a while to be ready to share my creations directly with the public. His meeting and his exchanges with Marie Ségolène C. Brault were a trigger for the artist, a little as if the planets had just aligned in favor of an exhibition. “I felt safe to show Sterile at Espace Maurice,” she says.
On site, when Caroline Schub is present, guests are even discreetly suggested to wear a mask. “It’s important to me, since I’m immunocompromised, that people who have other privileges show solidarity,” says the American, very happy to move up a gear and see new people interact with her works. And to continue: “If someone can feel connected to my work or apprehend a different experience from theirs, such as the experience of a chronic illness, then I am grateful. For her, the resulting discussions are all to be nurtured, to be cherished.
If Caroline Schub has taken up self-portraits since 2010, it’s because they are a way for her to preserve herself while leaving a mark, documenting her story and her experience. “Everyone has their own relationship to their body. The way I experience the disease does not mean that it must be the case for everyone. But being an artist allows me to invent a language to be understood, by others as well as by myself,” she says.
His works are also an essential tool for taking a step back. Or, rather, height. “I was very isolated, as a child, then as an adult, but it is the contacts that help us to flourish,” she points out.
The artist also hopes to be able to benefit from the open health dialogue, in a way, “thanks” to the pandemic. “When I think back to my childhood and my youth, I don’t remember knowing that many people who were creating from something that I also felt, namely an invisible illness,” she says. , aspiring today to ever greater cohesion.
A protean vision
And as long as she materializes the undetectable, the impalpable, Caroline Schub takes pleasure in exploring the self-portrait, in modeling it as she pleases. “Why am I using my body as a whole? It’s that, for me, self-portraits are not necessarily an exact replica. They don’t have to look like me,” says the artist. His sculpture To Skin as Single Use II, made of plaster, silicone and string to reproduce bones and human flesh, she sees it as a tangible self-portrait. “Because I dissect myself, create artifacts and put myself inside different objects, I can translate the discomfort I feel in my body,” she says.
As for the photographs, Caroline Schub takes them herself from her home in the United States. “It’s very important, because if I don’t feel well, I can do it [prendre des photos] in my bed,” she said. These pictures of Sterile were taken in particular while she was cut off from the world, during the COVID-19 crisis. “All you see in these self-portraits is my own medical waste. It was crucial for me to portray my stillness and my body in different ways through the materials,” she adds. To better take us into his world, the artist also uses several forms of art, which feed each other. “When I take photos, I immediately think of writing a poem where I would use the same symbols, for example. »
Although Sterile does not have the form of a documentary as such, the brutality experienced and transcribed by Caroline Schub transcends her physical body in order to confront us with our discomfort, whatever it may be.