Marc-Aurèle Debut

ON REPEAT

★★★☆☆

On until 1 August 2026

Are gays okay? The question’s rhetorical, of course. Debut’s installation chases orgiastic exuberance to stave off the realisation that the carnival is long over. A pile of used men’s underwear — collected, one imagines, from a mere month’s worth of sexual encounters — hangs off laundry racks as if in a fetish club. An emoji-like graphic arrangement shows what the garb’s owners may get up to were they assembled within penetrating distance. Mechanical club beats blast on repeat, sustaining this cycle without reprieve.

Until 6pm, that is, when the gallery closes. Debut and his lovers spend their nights sleepless, imagining the courage to snap out of this cycle. They admit this much, wrongly believing this confession alone might save them. Pity, then, that they can’t make art out of it.


notes and notices are short and curt exhibition reviews. Read more:

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