L'Abandon au profit

Book published by Eva Barto for the Rennes Biennale 2016 through her publishing house Buttonwood Press, named after the community which, at the end of the 18th century, laid the bases of New York’s Stock Exchange system. The aim of this publishing house is to produce works, which, in different ways, reflect the economic contexts permitting their existence and turn them into narrative, where the boundaries between reality and a certain level of fiction are blurred. She uses the techniques of collage, montage and blue-pencilling to reconstruct and document the context in which she is evolving, and define her own parameters of readability. Behind this gesture, what is involved is attesting to a reality, by exaggerating its complexity. The book she produces, titled L’Abandon au profit [Giving way to profit], is thus the object of a kind of intentional vandalization: torn into several bits, it is available to the public upon request in several of the Biennale's exhibition venues. The public is thus invited to the frustrating experience of a perforce fragmented reading. [publisher's note]

The book is Eva Barto's contribution to the Rennes Biennale 2016 and should be considered in relation to the official Biennale catalogue for a complete impression of the project.