Cinquième Corps

Le Bal is delighted to present the first monographic exhibition in France devoted to the work of Noémie Goudal. In Cinquième Corps, the three series, In Search of the First Line (2014), Observatoires (2014) and Southern Light Stations (2015) will be displayed alongside new pieces specially produced for the Le Bal space. Noémie Goudal creates ambiguous photo-sculptures by superimposing handmade paper structures on a natural landscape. These architectural (staircases, domes, towers) or cosmic (ellipses) elements are placed against blank oceans or stretches of desert. Looking at these dreamlike shapes, the spectator’s gaze easily discerns the traces of artifice (creases, imperfections, strings, and wires) characteristic of two-dimensional objects designed for the sole purpose of the photograph. Noémie Goudal explores the sky as a space of re-creation where the human imagination extends infinitely like a fifth body made of ether (or a fifth element). Her work feeds on mankind’s quizzical gaze at the universe. Her montages, which are both images and objects, make play with such speculation. Noémie Goudal blurs our points of reference. Her works oscillate between hallucination and fact. They hold the mirror up to modern life with its ungraspable yet contradictory levels of truth.