The conceptual sources of Nicolas Daubanes’s artwork are placed in the history of forms of resistance and resilience. Through drawing and sculpture, his preferred media, he has developed a more specific research into the question of enclosure and its physical and psychological consequences. As a metaphor for a world in which freedom is in constant negotiation, this quest has led to him observing how control structures have invaded not only public but also private spaces, and how certain opposition strategies have become organised in practical terms.

The winner of the Prize of the Amis du Palais de Tokyo in 2018, Nicolas Daubanes has in this new exhibition taken an interest in various popular protests (from the Paris Commune to recent actions for identity rights) to extract gestures, slogans and strategies for resistance. While concrete and iron dust join up here to make up a delinquent landscape, a sonic piece created by Akhénaton, the rapper from Marseille, will ring out singular testimonies of men and women who have been through singular trials in their lives.

Born in 1983, Nicolas Daubanes lives and works in Marseille. He is a graduate of HEART Perpignan (2010). In 2019, he benefited from various solo shows, such as “Le monde ou rien” at Le Frac PACA, in Marseille or “Le hasard vaincu” at Les Atelier Vortex, in Dijon. In the past few years, he has taken part in numerous group exhibitions, in particular at CAC in Cincinnati (2019), the Frac Occitanie, in Montpellier (2018) as well as the Villa Arson, in Nice (2016). Winner of the Prize of the Amis du Palais de Tokyo in 2018, he was in residency at the art centre of the synagogue of Delme in 2019.