GILLIAN BRETT

Gillian Brett (b. 1990, Paris) lives and works in Marseille. The practice of Gillian Brett is dedicated to analyzing the delicate and complex relationship between the human being and technology, reflecting specifically on the ways and the processes by which it inevitably shapes and influences the surrounding world. She graduated with a Master of Fine Arts at Villa Arson in Nice (France) and has a Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, University of London (UK). Solo exhibitions include: ART-O-RAMA, booth C+N Canepaneri, Friche de la Belle de Mai, Marseille ; Due per due, C+N Canepaneri, cur. Chiara Nuzzi, Milan, 2019; Showroom, Art-o-rama, cur. Stefano Collicelli Cagol, J1, Marseille, 2018; Quousque Tandem ? Exp. des lauréats du Prix Dauphine, Galerie du CROUS, Paris, 2016. Group exhibitions include: Par Hasard, Friche de la Belle de Mai, Marseille; La Relève, Galerie des Grands Bains douches et Galerie HO, Marseille, 2019; Trà e stelle, Les Charpentiers de la Corse, Piedigriggio, 2018; Sense & Sensibilia, cur. Luigi Fassi & Chiara Nuzzi, Galeria Doris Ghetta, Ortisei, 2018; Machine in the middle, Windows 93, Romainville, 2018; Programme Inventeurs d’Aventures, curated by Gaël Charbau, PACA, 2017; Vienna Art Week – Open studio, Das Weisse Haus, Vienna, 2017; I Would Have Done Everything For You / Gimme more!, curated by Cedric Fauq, London, 2016; Prix Dauphine pour l’art contemporain, Université Paris-Dauphine, Paris, 2016.

Visit the artist’s exhibition at BUNGALOW here
Website: www.gillianbrett.net

Poetics of Encryption
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
17 February – 26 May 2024

Though we rely on digital tools for many things, we rarely understand how they work. Moreover, due to the proprietary nature of much corporate tech, even the most curious among us cannot gain deeper insight. Today, we are forced to come to terms with our relative lack of power in the face of inscrutable systems. What symptoms of this personal and political drama register in the cultural field? What moods, symbols, or narrative frames capture the aesthetics and politics of exclusion, occlusion, secrecy, and speculation concerning technology’s inside? Poetics of Encryption builds upon the recent book by Nadim Samman titled Poetics of Encryption: Art and the Technocene. It surveys an imaginative landscape marked by Black Sites, Black Boxes, and Black Holes—terms that indicate how technical systems capture users, how they work in stealth, and how they distort cultural space-time. These themes form the basis for three chapters that play out across all gallery floors at KW.

Douze preuves d’Amour
Curated by Gaël Charbau
Ancien Garage, Paris
7 October – 13 November 2022

The Emerige Revelations Grant is a springboard programme designed to support the young French art scene in partnership with an internationally renowned gallery. Each year, after a selection process lasting several months, 12 artists are chosen to exhibit collectively under the curatorship of Gaël Charbau. One of them will be awarded the Emerige Revelations Grant.

The winner, elected by a jury of professionals, benefits from the support of the partner gallery of the edition, the provision of a studio for one year and an endowment of €15,000 for the realization of his or her solo exhibition at the gallery the following year.

The artists selected for the 9th edition of the Emerige Revelations Grant are : Abdelhak BENALLOU, Gillian BRETT, Clémence ESTÈVE, David FESTOC, Léo FOURDRINIER, Théo GHIGLIA, Antonin HAKO, Dora JERIDI, Néféli PAPADIMOULI, Valentin RANGER, Paola Siri RENARD, Pier SPARTA

Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen
15th July – 3rd, October, 2021
Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken

The artistic work of Gillian Brett is dedicated to analyzing the relationship between the human being and technology, reflecting specifically on the ways and the processes by which it inevitably shapes and influences the surrounding world. Her objects and installations address many contemporary issues such as agro-industry, new and “green” technologies, the artificialization of the world, or the reign of efficiency.

Gillian Brett uses the LCD screen not as a medium, or even as a media, but as a material. By drilling, sanding, breaking and burning the screens, she recreates a starry sky, which due to light pollution, is no longer really observable in our world today. Her casts show us the butcher’s laboratory where kebab meat, sausages and roast chicken reveal discarded technological devices suspended in resin. Brett alienates everyday objects that are familiar to us and places them in a critical context. The question of mankind’s place in the world remains open.

The title of the exhibition refers to the book Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen (The Obsolescence of Human Beings) by Günther Anders, in which the author describes the effects that man-made technological progress has on humanity. The basic thesis of “obsolescence” is that man can no longer keep up with his own products, that he is no longer equal to their perfection. Anders recognizes in this adaptation of man to the machine (which he describes not only as a mental but also as a physical process) a loss of ego, which is also welcomed by modern man, who is ashamed in the face of the perfection of the machines.

I have no face but you can trust me
30th January – 10th April 2021
Galerie de la Scep, Marseilles