Godspeed You Black Emperor", by Ladji Diaby at Crèvecoeur

A pharaoh-shaped lamp next to a household object, Power Rangers action figures alongside motifs from family traditions: this is how Franco-Malian artist Ladji Diaby constructs his montages by proximity in this first solo exhibition at Crèvecoeur. A graduate of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris and working across sculpture, installation, image, and video, Diaby draws from a gesture inherited from childhood — walks through the flea markets of Ivry-sur-Seine with his mother, who transformed furniture brought home by covering it with fabrics, colors, and decorative patterns, giving each object a more personal and spiritual presence. The artist compares his method to musical sampling, gathering found objects and images collected online into ensembles where each piece functions as a talisman, whose value depends on its ability to act collectively — moving a single piece of furniture, he says, can be enough to invert an entire system of values, transforming a figure previously seen as demonic into a protector, or a common object into a sculpture. Diaby conceives of the exhibition itself as a temporary dwelling, occupied for a few weeks before disappearing, in a gesture he describes as symptomatic of a world in decline facing an uncertain reconstruction.