PERFORMANCE – Occurrence

In his series of performances Occurrence, Jérôme Grivel explores what he calls “vocal gestures”, a repertoire that blends traditional singing, extreme music techniques, and sounds that push the limits of human capacity. Equipped with a microphone and an effects pedal that allows him to record sound loops, he engages in an exercise where the sounds he produces are immediately replayed and amplified, layering one upon another. The artist is thus constantly compelled to increase the volume of his voice in order to rise above that of the machine. He undertakes an exercise in exhaustion in which physical production attempts to compete with technical reproduction, thereby exploring the limits of the human body. In their succession, his sounds create a rhythm in which the immediate past overlaps with the present: a constant rewriting of the same gesture unfolds like a palimpsest of ever-increasing intensity. Through this forward flight, doomed to fail, Jérôme Grivel establishes a connection with fields of creation that may at first seem distant, bringing them together in a single impulse—or cry.

In his performances, as in the rest of his practice, Jérôme Grivel works within zones of tangency and ambivalence where nothing is quite what it seems. For him, they are metaphors for our fluid identities and cries in response to the absurdities and excesses of our societies.

About Jérôme Grivel

Jérôme Grivel (born in 1985 in Mulhouse) develops a performative and transdisciplinary practice (sculpture, drawing, architectural projects, performance, video). His work explores the entangled relationships between situations, environments, and bodies, as well as the social, political, and psychological dimensions that arise from them. Through activatable dispositifs, he questions the visible and invisible structures that shape our beliefs, movements, and behaviors.

His work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions by international institutions such as Mac Val (Vitry-sur-Seine), Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles (Paris), Grand Palais (Paris), Wiels (Brussels), Städtische Galerie Stapflehus (Weil am Rhein), Frac Sud (Marseille), Institut d’Art Contemporain (Villeurbanne), MAMAC (Nice), Museum of Impossible Forms (Helsinki), Kunsthaus L6 (Freiburg), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Collection Lambert (Avignon), Espace de l’Art Concret (Mouans-Sartoux), and City Sonic in Mons, among others.

In 2025, he was awarded the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles / Carré sur Seine Prize 2024 and was previously a finalist for the Pierre David-Weill Drawing Prize (2021), the Sciences Po Prize (2019), and the Emerige Revelation Grant (2017).

Mediator: Jérôme Grivel

In collaboration with: ICOM Luxembourg

Free of charge | No booking required.