I am spacious, singing flesh

Curated by Kathryn Weir, the remarkable exhibition in which this new monograph originates explores multiple transformations: of oneself, of others, of collective identities, struggles, liberations and refuges.

A powerful and unexpected dialogue is established with a number of popular devotional objects, drawn from archaeological or liturgical collections Italian, evoking the ambivalent threshold present in Tabouret's practice, portal to multiple temporalities and subjectivities through which envisage alternative relationships between human beings, between the human being and his environment in the face of ecological and societal crises, but also in communication with the supernatural.

Through 25 works by Tabouret - the earliest dating from 2008, but the bulk from the artist's last decade of multiform practice - the exhibition articulates the different structures and fluidities present within subjectivity and identities constructed through paintings, sculptures, videos and works on paper. Wandering subjectivities and magical materialism are the main themes of the exhibition. Gradually, suspended potential and metaphysical friction inscribed in the works emerge at through associations - interior/exterior, material/spiritual, visible/invisible.

The enigmatic language of ritual and repetition in Tabouret's amniotic worlds reveals mysterious states of consciousness and interweaves individual identity and larger forces. The exhibition also explores a double and multiple condition of the self, in relation to fertility and maternity, notably through the presence of two Matres Matutae from Capua, admirable ex-voto sculpted in volcanic tuff between 500 and 200 BC whose magical presence recreates a renewed material bond with the earth. Processes of incarnation and transfiguration, monstrous creatures and unexplainable , all are linked by a miraculous possibility of transformation. As Hélène Cixous wrote in Le Rire de la Méduse (1975), “Je suis Chair spacieuse chantante, sur laquelle s'ente nul sait quel(le) je plus ou moins humain mais d'abord vivant puisqu'en transformation”. Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at Palazzo Cavanis, Venice, from April to November 2022, as part of the 59th Venice Biennale.