CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE
C’ERAA UNAAA VOLTAAA CARLEWORDDD
JUNE 6 - JULY 7, 2023
Imagine a semi-deserted island, a motorcycle covered in stuffed animals, a heteroclite assembly, a smiling master of ceremonies, the frame of a motorcycle adorned with dozens of faces, and a wonderful harmonica box, object of everyone’s desires. NOOOrd.. esttt.. At the call of these evocative coordinates, Charlemagne slowly moves, trying to orient himself towards an exit. “Ok, ooookaaaay” - he transmits that desire to travel before others can direct and manage it. He takes the key to his dreams.
Each time he pitches his tent in his nomadic self, he transforms into an inhabitant of savannah, a parachutist in the blueish mystery of the Arctic, an Indian enveloped in fire. Horses, bisons, cowboys invade the blackboard of his mind against backgrounds of rocks, sand, and weeds. Slowly traveling from one end of the island to the other, murmurs, draws out sound, he sings, explores escape routes with his renewed and intelligent gaze that stitches the panorama of a new country into his eyes. The vertebrates follow him walking, running, jumping, swimming, and flying, according to their nature, with skill that humans envy - there is little we can do which an animal hasn’t already done. Charlemagne charges himself with the energies of his totemic deities, for example, a great shogun: majestic, fearsome, and determined not to concede an inch of his skin, holding his treasures, proud of having braved winds and seas. As he shakes the dust off the white streets of Saint Pierre Island, he transforms everything around him into a sound environment that gives his dreams a realistic and poetic dimension. Un enfant.. un payss...ses divinités.. une île.. he breathes the joy of childhood. As he repeatedly exclaims “okkeeey,” he conjures a psychological space that is secure, a linguistic heuristics to affirm one’s sen- se of self. Thus, we find ourselves in the age of discovery where imagination replaces what the present does not allow us to grasp, where dreams tame reality. In a decidedly post-modern turn, uttering simple words such as “okay” with varied degrees of complexity and depth, seemingly simple exclamations become inflected projections of one’s inner resonances.
Edoardo Marabini
