Quant au reste du monde, il était perdu, sans place précise, et comme n'existant pas.: Paul Paillet

„Quant au reste du monde, il était perdu, sans place précise, et comme n‘existant pas.“ (As for the rest of the world, it was lost, without a definite place, and as if non-existent) marks the first solo exhibition of Paul Paillet at KALI Gallery.

Through its title, Paul Paillet‘s exhibition offers us a double reference with its phrase drawn from Gustave Flaubert‘s novel Madame Bovary, a work that captures what would later be called Bovarism: the inability to see oneself clearly, and the quiet anguish that follows, of self-unfulfillment, of being trapped, unable to break free from an environment that holds you in place through countless, relentless constraints.

The phrase also appears in Avital Ronell‘s essay Crackwars: Literature, Addiction, Mania, where her reading of Madame Bovary through the lens of addiction casts Emma as a figure swept up in the pull and coercion of a death drive, one triggered not by individual weakness, but by the deeply addictive structure of everyday life itself.

This interpretation of Flaubert‘s work suggests something far-reaching: that society, as a whole, is destined for dependency.