‘Sunday Scaries’, a Group Show at 22,48 m2, Paris

After a long week of work you let off steam on Saturday night. Sunday then becomes the time for a torpid questioning of one’s entire existence. Laying in bed all day, regretting past decisions and reflecting with dread on a seemingly unsure future from a precarious present. Sunday Scaries is commonly referred to as a temporary and unsettling feeling, which hits you after getting away, whether physically or mentally, from everyday life during the week-end. This anxiety and fear caused by the re-introduction to the world and its requirements - productivity, political, social and affective responsibilities - inform the artworks gathered in the exhibition. Staying at home and idly dedicating oneself to solitary activities leads to a peculiar contentment of self-absorbed pity. This paradoxical comfort is nevertheless compromised by the awareness of the imminent end of the voluntary exile. The sense of culpability felt when escaping from the injunction of wellness and self-fulfillment sneaks into the domestic cocoon. In a society which praises action and sociability, the passive withdrawal into one’s self fluctuates between discomfort and enjoyment. The urge to disconnect from the world for a few more hours is undermined by the compulsive temptation to turn to one’s phone or computer, devices through which external realities besiege the private sphere. When faced with recent political developments linked to the already ancient rise of conservative and isolationist movements, the risk (temptation?) to remain in a daze is great. It is this paralyzing feeling of uncertainty and illegitimacy, this fearful melancholy that Sunday Scaries wishes to evoke.