If one were to retain a symbolic image of Alain Declercqís approach it would  unarguably be the ëloopí. An image of a loop corresponding to that notion of reflexivity where every element, after a short detour, a quick  flight  where exaltation, pleasure, voluptuous deception succeed each other,  is seen returning inexorably to itself. Whether it consists of his installations -  Feedback microphone, 1998, an audio arrangement  in which the visitor is  attacked   by Larsens he  himself set off with his own movements; or of his videos -  DÈmystifications, 1998: with montage cuts  (of a  disarming simplicity): a character (the artist himself) kicks a ball which inevitably comes back to his foot; or  one of his interventions - Crashcars, 2000: two empty, driverless cars describe two perfect circles, intersecting as they go (the two circles form a figure of eight) without ever colliding;  or of his photographs- Anti-heroes, 1998: in a self-portrait, the artistís right hand is transformed into a left hand which is thus duplicated;  or even of his drawings - Letter forgery: with a special program, he invents and sends letters solely composed from the actual letters ñand hand-writing ñ of the  addressees.  It is a recurrent theme in which something is turned on itself, of    subjects which ëdetermine themselvesí (often in isolation), of a circular process which makes us go back to where we are.

This eternal return on, this duplication, does not necessarily mean repetition, but, rather, like squaring, a reinforcement, an enhanced presence where  reality, as  through a magnifying glass, is seen reasserted, enlarged. One of the favourite themes of the artist concerns everything which touches on means of control, even of defence and repression, put in place supposedly   for our  security. Besides, there is  the fact that these various systems of (video) surveillance and spying may be linked to this perspective of exacerbation of reality. One stares, focuses, and the observed appears necessarily exaggerated.  The artist, yet again, turns them round  to use them back to front in the purest tradition of the ësprayer-sprayedí,  coming straight from Sophie Calleís famous play where she employs a private detective to compile a dossier on her own doings.

This is the kind of pirouette (even though, in the event,  the performance  has never been so dangerous) to which the artist invites  our attention with the Make Up project realised for his exhibition in the Centre díArt Contemporain at BrÈtigny, which immediately seems to fit into this logic of duplication and of multiple forms of representation. After making a fake police vehicle - but not any vehicle: a Citroen of the Evasioní model, entirely repainted and customised.  Alain Decercq sets up a scheme to allow any visitor to contract  to borrow the said vehicle and to use it on public roads. And behind the anecdote? Does the ëEvasioní police car really exist? And beyond a highly pictorial mechanism? By repainting and making up the  vehicle from the original, we are in that tradition where mimesis plays a role of prime importance. The deliberately subversive thesis of Alain Declercq asks us questions, not without humour, about certain boundaries of art. And of the sites which are pre-determined for it. On some of the limits of representation: actually, if the Centre díArt appears to be one of the only possible spaces in which to execute such a project (outside this space, no salvation: articles 433-15 And 433-22 are very clear on this matter), the artist paradoxically enters  total illegality  at the precise moment when he tries, with success, to represent one of the forms of legality. The  image of the  pirouette finds here all its meaning; certainly, the few people who are bold enough to endeavour to discover themselves for a while in the skin of a policeman behind  the wheel before returning to their true identity with relief, will certainly not argue about  its magnitude. 

Xavier Franceschi is director of FRAC Ile de France, Le Plateau, Paris.