EXILE FROM BABYLON / INVITATION

Arsenal Contemporary & Jean-François Bouchard are pleased to invite you to the opening
of his next exhibition in New York City.

UPCOMING
EXHIBITION

STATEMENT

For the Exile from Babylon body of work, the artist documented a squatters' camp in the California desert. Driven by homelessness, drug addiction, or libertarianism, some Americans choose to reject modern society - Babylon as they call it - to form unlikely communities of squatters and wanderers seeking collective refuge. On this decommissioned military base, the community evolves without a municipal government and without running water, electricity, or garbage removal. 

As a result of the harsh desert winds and the garbage littering the site, as well as the residents' strange habit of throwing objects at them, many trees are adorned with debris creating surreal post-apocalyptic scenes. The artist elected to show the community’s grueling reality metaphorically instead of directly. The trees represent the tension between nature and life on one hand, and the degrading living environment and human condition on the other.

For more information: mj@jfbouchard.com

www.jfbouchard.com