magie, Final Hot Desert

10th - 18th July 2026

29 Ability Plaza, Arbutus Street

London

Press Release

Rechonski’s magie makes use of a secondhand French copy of Antonin Artaud’s Cahiers de Rodez, Février-Avril 1945. Volume 15 of Œuvres complètes, a book containing Artaud’s notes written during his time at the Rodez psychiatric asylum. The book's original owner had attempted to translate it into English, filling the negative space of the page margins.

Each of the twelve translated pages were scanned by the artist, who then removed the original text and printed the handwritten translations onto acetate. The resulting prints look almost like scenic design sketches for a piece of theatre with the hardly legible, text-filled margins acting as curtains, incidentally echoing Artaud’s belief that, “To break through language in order to touch life is to create or re-create theatre”.

Of the twelve works printed on acetate, three are displayed in the gallery at a time. The prints will be rotated throughout the course of the exhibition.