My Horse for a Shore is Benoît Maire’s third solo exhibition at the gallery. As Sally Bonn wrote in her fine introduction to the work Un cheval, des silex (A Horse, Flints) written by the artist, “Benoît Maire is an artist who writes texts pervaded by philosophy and poetry. He does not try to assert anything. He plays with putting meaning on hold. To do this, he uses anything that comes to hand, in his studio or in his reading: images, objects, concepts. He observes their interrelationships, and is amazed, in the powerful, philosophical sense, by their resonance, and turns them around and juxtaposes them. He sees how it all reacts, responds, and then he continues. This way of thinking, writing, of understanding does not freeze meaning. Because while developing an unusual position in the field of aesthetics, the relationship that he has with both writing and theory is flexible and driven by curiosity."
Benoit Maire’s work is multifaceted, resulting in a remarkable variety of objects: paintings, sculptures, photos, video clips, installations, furniture, texts, documents, miscellaneous objects either recycled or made, old or recent, including dice, seashells, fossils, images, glass cubes, computer keyboards or mice ... The objects are not there in themselves, exhibited as unique shapes, but are incorporated into a historic and syntactic fabric, a ‘text’ which is a combination of visual or conceptual symbols.”