Moments of heavy silence suffuse Pol Taburet’s debut German solo present, ‘The Burden of Papa Tonnerre’, at Schinkel Pavillon in Berlin – the second in a three-part sequence of exhibitions that started in March on the Pabellón de los Hexágonos in Madrid and can conclude on the Bienal de São Paulo later this 12 months.
An meeting of 5 bronze heads (Papa and Soldier, all works 2025), with pinched facial options and sealed mouths, relaxation atop rectangular plinths. They’re encircled by a sequence of 4 large-scale work depicting ghoul-like figures engaged in non secular ceremonies. The exhibition textual content introduces the legend of Papa Tonnerre, a mute determine weighed down by the secrets and techniques of others, who good points speech by a cope with a witch. Unable to bear the emotional burden of his information, he breaks his silence – and is exiled for the confessions he reveals. Though by no means instantly depicted, Tonnerre – a personality impressed by Creole oral custom – haunts each work, eliciting an attentiveness to what’s left unstated.
The portray And all of us danced to the bully’s beat reveals two cloaked figures lingering round a central spokesperson who holds court docket atop a tablecloth-covered podium. Wearing a pointed black hat – a recurring motif within the artist’s oeuvre – the protagonist’s skeletal arm awkwardly juts out from his aspect whereas his faint facial options solely simply cohere. Taburet makes use of an airbrush to attain this hallucinatory impact, contrasting the delicacy of the translucent mist, solid throughout the faces of his topics, with the closely layered impasto comprising their clothes and the backdrops. Departing from his beforehand vibrant palette – knowledgeable by his Caribbean background – Taburet turns right here to extra brooding tones: moss greens, graphite greys, deep blacks. The result’s a muted airplane from which his figures subtly emerge then retreat.
At instances, this formal consistency can really feel repetitive, with motifs such because the pointed hat and the tablecloth biking from one portray to the subsequent. Whereas this reiteration creates a cohesive visible language – providing symbols of non secular significance, similar to ceremonial apparel and a delegated assembly place – its predictability often undermines these parts’ symbolic weight and resonance.
A collection of 12 black and white lithographs depicting a nightmarish hunt occupy a small adjoining room (Papa Tonnerre’s tales). Locked in a battle for survival, hybrid creatures try to flee the confines of the web page, fleeing any tangible narrative the viewers would possibly impose. The artist’s free mark-marking successfully captures the dissolution of actuality. Shifting between liberation and subjugation, the scenes echoe Tonnerre’s ethical dilemma.
In the direction of the far finish of the upstairs gallery, a big wood-panelled construction resembling an elongated witness stand acts as a assist for The Nest: two an identical however inverted sculptures of animal hybrids with lengthy, pointed beaks and winged ears. Whereas their our bodies relaxation atop the wood prop, their heads dive downward, directing silent accusations on the determine beneath – an otherworldly being submerged from the nostril down in a small coffin-turned-dining desk (My Expensive II) – the present’s closest embodiment of Tonnerre. With beige felt panels protecting the gallery home windows, sealing in all mild and sound, the setting reinforces the metaphorical burden of his narrative, asking guests to replicate upon the burden of their very own voices and the implications that may come up from making them heard. What stays is stillness: a room suspended from the surface world; a spot the place judgement, be it human or spirit, comes to assemble. Throughout my go to, the one sound I hear is the loud footsteps of a fellow customer. He seems at me as if he would possibly apologize, however as an alternative, for worry of breaking the silence, fails to open his mouth.
Pol Taburet’s ‘The Burden of Papa Tonnerre’ is on view at Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, till 13 July
Fundamental picture: Pol Taburet, As a result of he spoke, 2025, acrylics, alcohol-based paint and oil pastel on canvas, 2 × 2 m. Courtesy: the artist and Mendes Wooden DM, São Paulo, Brussels, Paris, New York; {photograph}: Frank Sperling
