Introduction

Imaginative, erudite stories, and public lectures in which historical source material is mixed with fictional storylines form the basis of the practice of visual artist and writer Alexandre Singh. Singh reflects on culture and society, and works a huge range of references into a complex body of work, building on traditions in literature, performance, and installation art.

"Assembly Instructions, The Pledge, Donatien Grau" is a series of framed scans that originated in the project 'The Pledge', which Singh developed for the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. In 2011, director Mark Wahler gave Singh carte blanche to work on the magazine of the Palais de Tokyo, "Palais". Singh was asked to work out something on the notion of the "pledge", as presented in Christopher Priest's science fiction novel "The Prestige". In it, Priest explains that a magic trick consists of three parts. First there is the "pledge", the presentation of a fact or situation, for instance the moment when the magician shows an object. This is followed by the "turn", in which the presented situation is literally turned, such as when the magician makes the previously displayed object disappear. And finally there is the "prestige", the finale of the trick, for example, when the magician makes the object reappear in a different place.
Singh's magazine consisted of seven interviews conducted by the artist with an equal number of intellectual and artistic personalities, including Donatien Grau, teacher at the University of Paris-Sorbonne and a member of the "Proust" research team at the Institute ITEM_CNRS. Each interview was subsequently rewritten by Singh as an imaginary story about a conversation, with dialogues that take place in the future, in dreams, or in a hallucinatory version of our world. Singh plays a clownish figure who exchanges views with each of his partners on the promise of a beginning, on how our brains understand the world, and how we experience our own stories and dreams. To accompany each of the conversations, Singh made a series of images that relate to the content of his text. The image sequences make up separate wall installations that have to be set up according to a fixed set of instructions.

In 2012, Alexandre SINGH has had solo shows at the Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, Germany, and at Witte de With, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In 2011 he presented a solo show at Sprüth Magers Berlin, Germany and his exhibition "La Critique de L'Ecole des Objets' at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France.
In 2012, he took part in the Bucharest Biennale in Romania (with David Maljkovic) and in a group show of the Zabludowicz Collection in London. In 2011, his work was shown at the KUMU Art Museum of Estonia in Tallinn, Estonia, in 2010 at Manifesta 8 in Murcia, Spain, and in 2009 at PS1 MoMA, New York.
In 2013, Alexandre Singh will present a solo show at The Drawing Center, New York.