In Théophylle Dcx’s work, a catastrophe is mentioned several times, without it being entirely clear whether it is fantasized, anticipated, or simply in the past, experienced by others before him. Throughout his work, which consists of writings, performances, and videos, the topics address grief, illness, and violence that unfolds in various forms, at times embodying this catastrophe, but also the rhythm of celebration, intertwining bodies, the embrace, and the fusion of relationships. The feelings we experience and the wounds we suffer become what binds us. His lived experience is his primary material – the artist has even created an autobiography in the form of a filmed pharmacological portrait (Curriculum Vihtae, 2022). All the medication boxes prescribed to him in recent years for his HIV status, which he has kept, allow him to unfold a narrative over time that is both personal, medical, and political, imbuing the cardboard packaging of the tablets with intimacy. 

Théophylle Dcx’s writing experiments, playing with twisting the dominant language, aligns with the rhythm of music, and lets itself be influenced by the lyrics of the songs he listened to in his teenage room – he translates himself, dissolves into it. In his book Rose2Rage published in 2023, he writes: «we become one on the remix, we marry on a remix, we remix – we re-ex-ist, BOOM, in remix – I continue to make my me.X.s exist.» Similar to a remix, his writing revisits and recomposes, as a series of themes and variations, sexual energy and social reflections, fluids and rage, substances and passions, tumult and emotions. He aligns the prosody of melody with that of the scream, silence, or dance, which appears in his work as a means of summoning our legacies and pasts through movement to better sublimate them.

And if there is a catastrophe, then who survives? The artist questions the systemic mechanisms that legitimize certain struggles at the expense of others that they invisibilize. Like the viral load in the blood, he notes that some survivals are made «undetectable,» society not leaving enough space for their pain or struggle. Théophylle Dcx reinvents the genealogies he is part of: celebrating his «daddys,» unknown individuals who died of AIDS to whom he pays tribute, imagining that the struggles of the previous generation have made the next generation «children of survivors,» declaring his love to those he calls his «beloved ones.» In a performance recently given at the Palais de Tokyo, the artist turned the lyrics of LaTour’s techno song «People are still having sex» into a refrain. People continue to unite; even if the catastrophe is there, his practice becomes a conduit for desire, and is not devoid of hope or resilience. 

Texte by Lou Ferrand, independent curatress. 

The artist residency programme is organised by the CAC - la synagogue de Delme in collaboration with the Lorraine Regional Natural Park and the village of Lindre-Basse.