Like a continuous flow, this book whose pages not only allow but encourage a non-linear reading can be opened anywhere, launching a story with no beginning or end. Purposely free and fluid, its structure echoes the poetry of Joël Andrianomearisoa, which is itself a perpetual current that does not impose any particular reading approach. Like the exquisite corpse method or a film by Jean-Luc Godard, this collection of poems acts like a collage gathering all the sentences the artist has written. They are like isolated images removed from their context and attached together to weave the fabric of a possible story that becomes impossible, or vice versa. An immersive poetic experience to which words are constantly added, this collaborative publication emphasizes the fundamental importance of poetry, the beating heart that is the lifeblood of the Malagasy artist’s practice.

Known for his monumental installations and his exploration of the materiality of emotions, Joël Andrianomearisoa reintroduces poetic space into contemporary art. In apparently paradoxical fashion, he inserts sentiments into a movement whose smooth, minimal appearance had always excluded the individual, gestures, and voice. Confronting two opposing traditions, he skillfully combines the sentimentalism of the digital era and the vast, cold aesthetic of minimalism that seems frozen in time. In this way, he affirms the need to reinject poetic language into contemporary artistic practices.

Using pronouns that include the reader in the story he is telling, the poetry of Joël Andrianomearisoa speaks directly to the reader. It is all-encompassing, inclusive, almost immersive. Switching naturally between French, Malagasy, and English, the artist constantly brings together and shares all the cultures that make up his daily life. Situated on the border of worlds, he embodies a “non-geography” that is symbolic of the diverse cultures of Madagascar. A poetic invitation to embark into his polyphonic world, this oscillation between languages recalls the Malagasy traditions of authors such as Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, who wrote poems simultaneously in Malagasy and French, or Maurice Ramarozaka, whom Joël Andrianomearisoa regularly evokes in his works. Faced with this “geography without geographies,” it is the universality of sentiment, love, friendship, despair, nostalgia, and emotions that the artist describes in a symphony of multiple languages.

Often without punctuation, Joël Andrianomearisoa’s syntax flows without ever stopping. Establishing its own rhythm, it is liberated from everything standardized and codified that punctuation represents. Influenced by Apollinaire’s experiments in his collection Alcools or the typographical poems of Mallarmé, this non-punctuation allows for the creation of unexpected images and ambiguous meanings, giving readers the possibility of coming up with their own interpretations. Andrianomearisoa’s short poems are a nod to the traditional poetry of Madagascar, especially the hain-teny, which emphasize concision, ellipsis, and dual levels of reading. His poetry takes place in these gaps of meaning. Like his large-scale installations of silk paper that include empty parts, or his metal sculptures whose structures contain holes through which the wind can enter, his writings use the void as a poetic force. Describing through silence and omitting punctuation so that readers are free to interpret: these strategies are combined with a desire to avoid certainty and hint at potential meanings. The poetry of Joël Andrianomearisoa is about suggestion, not resolution.

While short, his sentences are almost always written in uppercase letters, resolutely filling up the space. Predating lowercase letters, which were invented by calligraphers in order to fit more words onto the page, capital letters are emblematic of a conscious and enchanting concision. From the Latin capitalis, “concerning the head,” capital letters make his succinct phrases into real slogans or statements, or sometimes even a shout into space that may only be a whisper, proclaiming by their size the importance of each word composing them.

Both a means and an end, a form and sometimes a substance, whether it is sculpted, inscribed on fabric, painted, or written by hand, the poetry of Joël Andrianomearisoa follows the traces of Marcel Broodthaers, who advocated text as image and image as text. A common thread as much as a visual tool, words in his work are not part of a semantic approach but a sentimental quest. Throughout the pages of this book, readers are invited to wander through the artist’s poetic world and experience its rhythm. With complete freedom to interpret, readers are driven to consider the potential of words and poetry for expressing the complexity and universality of our human experiences. The space of a word.

Jérôme Sans, curator