Foreword

Kim Waldron. Une autre femme_Another Woman is a retrospective volume that spans fifteen years of Kim Waldron’s artistic practice. The book’s title refers to the artist’s almost constant use of the self-portrait. Here, another woman is herself. In this context, the title necessarily recalls the famous statement “I is another” Arthur Rimbaud made in his May 15, 1871 letter to Paul Demeny. This paradoxical phrase, which questions the boundaries between identity and otherness, is translated and entangled in Waldron’s work with all the challenges that the duality between reality and fiction poses in her images and stories. In her projects, she becomes this other woman, this other women is the outcome of this becoming. To become a politician, the artist actually carried out her electoral campaign and worked full time on it. To become a butcher, the artist spent almost a year studying butchery.

Kim Waldron’s self-portraits are presented in various guises, such as photographs, video, printmaking, literary writing or even as legal entities, as is the case with Kim Waldron Limited. In self-portraiture the use of the represented body also entails an important performative dimension. Waldron’s work has taught me that the body is active even when it is still. Each of these fragments, each of these moments she captures in an image rightly presupposes a past, present and future and thus generates multiple stories that are not only rooted in the represented actions, but also in the artist’s very body. Her body evolves and is transformed along with her approach and thus shapes her stories.

Kim Waldron is fond of storytelling and she likes to tell the story of herself. Though it is true that she is interested in the dichotomy between reality and fiction, this should not be misunderstood; fiction certainly fuels her proposals, but she also transforms herself and often becomes the source of the realities she physically embodies in her works. Fiction is primordial at the preparation phase of her projects, at the start of the writing process and it is subsequently sustained by the artist’s discourse rather than by her actions and performances. If the fiction persists, it is usually because, once the project is done, Waldron uses her exhibition labels, titles, interviews and texts to juxtapose her creations with the stories that shaped their existence. To properly understand her work, it is important to assimilate its conceptual and formal aspects and this requires a comprehension that goes beyond the image alone and must encompass the artist’s creative process and discourse. In addition to meeting these expectations, this book also comprises an essay by Marie-Ève Charron and a literary text by Jacob Wren, both of which contribute to refining and enriching the experience of Waldron’s work.

— Jean-Michel Ross