Théo Mercier’s new solo show brings to mor charpentier a whimsical vision for an archeology of the future. In a well orchestrated choreography of sculptures and paintings, he addresses current ecological concerns from a melancholic perspective, and contemplates time standing still in the absence of human kind. This staging of a new landscape is intertwined with ancestral references, vanitas and precious materials, confounding the fake with the genuine in Mercier’s classic trompe-l’œil effects, and comforting the processes of Nature and a domesticated kind of life.
The departing point of this project is close to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), a groundbreaking essay that established a new ecological consciousness in the USA. However, Mercier is far from a Romantic vision that leans on melancholy over a forgotten time. While Carson feared a future springtime where the sing of birds won’t be heard anymore, Mercier fantasies of the silence humans will leave behind if they’d disappear.