Alexis Ralaivao: On s’enrichit de ce que l’on donne, on s’appauvrit de ce que l’on prend

Working with three main models—his girlfriend, his brother, and a close friend—Ralaivao retains a familial character in his work. “I can’t paint people I’m not really intimate with,” Ralaivao told the Artsy Vanguard on the occasion of his 2022 spotlight. “It feels more authentic rather than [depicting] someone I don’t know, I won’t be emotionally involved enough to paint it well.” Ensuring the longevity of this personal connection to each work, Ralaivao inscribes a unique text on the verso of each canvas, hidden from installation view but certain to be unearthed by a future generation—a nod to the artist’s study of online art conservation videos that have shaped his understanding of the canvas as a layered archaeological site, one to be treated like a time capsule. While Ralaivao has previously inscribed personal diary entries on his canvases, this exhibition marks the first time the artist has authored a short story corresponding with the works on view—a fragment of which hides behind its respective composition—equally recalling French author Guy de Maupassant’s famous short story The Necklace (1884) and the German artist Max Klinger’s set of etchings Paraphrase on the Finding of a Glove (1877–78). Taken from the 1992 science fiction novel Le jour des fourmis by French writer Bernard Werber, the exhibition title—“we are enriched by what we give, we are impoverished by what we take”—alludes to Ralaivao’s thoughtful anticipation of the relics that will come to define his subjects’ social condition, all while encapsulating the moral of the story on view.