Alexandre Caretti was granted a research residency at CRAC Alsace during 2023 and 2024, supported by “Émergences Arts Visuels” program of the Région Grand Est. On this occasion, the art center invited curator and art critic Liberty Adrien to meet him and exchange about his artistic practice. These conversations now take the form of The rules can be reinvented at any time: Alexandre Caretti, a text by Liberty Adrien.

Artists using games as a medium of expression, then, manipulate elements common to games—representation systems and styles, rules of progress, codes of conduct, context of reception, winning and losing paradigms, ways of interacting in a game—for they are the material properties of games, much like marble and chisel or pen and ink bring with them their own intended possibilities, limitations, and conventions. – Mary Flanagan*

A flickering glow emanates from one of the dark corners of a fragile structure. Its undulations, reminiscent of a dancing flame, suggest the threat of a house fire. The facades of this angular, dollhouse-like architecture reveal a striking absence: devoid of doors and windows, they display a lone balcony, fruit and vegetable stickers, and a shipping label with a barcode. Makeshift electrical wires run along the cardboard walls, while the volumes of the building's burgundy roof hint at its interior layout. A peephole, discreetly positioned on one of the house's facades, offers a limited view of the scenes unfolding within—nothing more than a halo of light and moving shadows. This enigmatic work, entitled Maison (1996-2000) [House (1996-2000)] (2023), is a representation based on Alexandre Caretti's memory of his grandparents' home. Only the precarious aesthetic of this sculptural object is revealed to us, the dramaturgy at play is left to our imagination.

Caretti's work takes shape in the interstices between the fictional and the real, the manifest and the unspoken. His body of work, which spans multiple scales, temporalities, and media, echoes the notion of critical play as defined by historian Mary Flanagan. Blending the aesthetics and methods of games with elements drawn from his own biography, domestic iconography, and popular cultures—from oral and literary narratives to film and news references—Caretti interrogates the complex social, political, and cultural frameworks of contemporary society. Through sculptures and installations that evoke dollhouses and miniature worlds, scrapbook-like collages** and films inspired by cosplay*** practices, as well as collaborative art projects he initiates, Caretti invites us to critically reflect on notions of masculinity, belonging, and, more recently, the ecosystems of art.****

With a particular interest in periods of (trans)formation, especially the transition from childhood to adolescence and adulthood, Caretti's works find a unique setting in the buildings of the former school of Altkirch, now home to the CRAC Alsace. In residence for several months at the art center, we met in the former home of the school’s headmaster, where the artist lives and works. The hushed stairwell leading to the apartment, shrouded in mystery and bathed in dim light, strikingly echoes the artist's attraction to staging and storytelling. On the upper landing, Caretti has installed one of his works, entitled Bienvenue ludovic hadjeras [Welcome ludovic hadjeras] (2023), a high-intensity light bulb set into one of the wall sconces. Transformed into a liminal space that connects the outside world to the speculative realms woven by the artist, this stairwell-turned-exhibition space highlights Caretti's exploration of potential relationships between work and viewer. The essence of Bienvenue ludovic hadjeras lies in its participatory dimension: to activate it, visitors must climb the stairs and turn on the light.

The porous boundaries between artistic practice and everyday life play a crucial role in the artist's imagination. In recent years, Caretti’s work has developed in the context of collective experiences, reflecting a keen interest in the nuance and potential of human relationships through dialogue and collaboration. At the invitation of the 19, CRAC in Montbéliard in 2023, Caretti convened nine artists to engage in a creative process presented in the group exhibition Casabella.***** The rules of engagement, the conceptual framework and the layout of the exhibition were defined by the group during a residency-work-holiday in a rented house. Some of the works presented were co-created, while others subtly complemented each other, acting as supports or links. At the heart of Casabella was an emphasis on an affective network, a recurring term in Caretti's lexicon that underscores the equal importance of the creative process and the artworks exhibited.

By shifting the act of creation into the realm of collective thought, negotiation, compromise, and exchange, Caretti articulates a critical perspective that challenges the artist's sense of isolation from his community, as well as traditional notions of authorship and individual genius. In Caretti’s speculative worlds of multiple characters and narratives, where the boundaries between reality and fiction are blurred, tensions between permanence and transformation come to light, challenging the immutability of forms, beings, systems, and ideas.

—Liberty Adrien, September 2024.

* Mary Flanagan, Critical Play: Radical Game Design (MIT Press, 2009).
** Scrapbooking is the hobby of creating an album in which various items such as photographs, newspaper clippings, drawings, and other mementos of sentimental or commemorative value are collected and glued together.
*** Cosplay is the practice of dressing up as a character from manga, science fiction, and video games. Larousse online, consulted at https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/cosplay.
****Caretti uses the term in reference to the poet and artist Franck Leibovici: "a work of art cannot be reduced to the artifact on display. in order for the work to function as well as possible, it is essential to take into account the practices it implies, both in its production and in its maintenance, the collectives it mobilizes, the moral rules or ascetics it establishes—in short, its 'ecosystem.'" Excerpt from “Essais de bricologie. Ethnologie de l'art et du design contemporains," 2015, available at https://journals.openedition.org/tc/7582.
***** Casabella, a collective exhibition with Agathe Berthou, Ondine Duché, Christiane Geoffroy, ludovic hadjeras, Vérane Kauffmann, Jules Maillot, Marie Mercklé, Floraine Sintès and Kelly Weiss; from October 26—December 19, 2023 at 19 CRAC, Montbéliard Regional Center for Contemporary Art.

Based between Berlin and Frankfurt, Liberty Adrien has shared the curatorial direction of Portikus in Frankfurt with curator Carina Bukuts since 2022. Within this context, she has orchestrated monographic exhibitions devoted to Adrian Piper, Tarik Kiswanson and Philippe Thomas in 2024, as well as Simone Fattal and Lap-See Lam in 2023, and Ximena Garrido-Lecca and Asad Raza in 2022. She has also conceived group shows with artists such as Thomas Bayrle, Derek Jarman, Sarah Maldoror, Sung Tieu, Sky Hopinka, Trinh T. Minh-ha and Cecilia Vicuña. Prior to her arrival at Portikus, Liberty Adrien devised a series of exhibitions across Europe, showcasing a range of video works from the collections of 49 Nord 6 Est Frac Lorraine and the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap). Awarded the Cnap Curatorial Grant (2016-2017) for her Study on the history of acquisitions of works by women artists for the French national art collection, from 1791 to the present day, her research was featured in the Association's magazine AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, and in ARTE Journal (2020). Liberty Adrien is also an author and editor, and teaches at Frankfurt's Städelschule.