Honoré δ’O

40 Days in the Desert 

Conceived by Honoré δ’O for the large square room at MACS, the exhibition Quarantaine-Quarantine consists of a vast installation in which the Belgian artist evokes the “retreat into the desert” he undertook for 40 days as part of his residency in Marfa (Texas) in 2024. As its title suggests through the double meaning of the French word “quarantaine”, (both “around forty (days)” and “quarantine”), the project combines the experience of spiritual introspection with that of physical isolation. Installed in a mobile home, away from urban and social life, Honoré δ’O immersed himself during this time in the surrounding landscape: the Chihuahuan Desert, an arid, ascetic space in perfect harmony with the principle of permanent reinvention that has fueled his artistic approach since the 1990s. A habitat for both nomads and hermits, on the edge of organised territories that are constantly "biting” into and nibbling away at it, the desert becomes in particular a metaphor for resistance against all forms of conquest (spatial, military, territorial, commercial). Among the many situations documented by the artist, the construction site (by 3D printing) of the El Cosmico hotel near Mount Haystack sums up in a disturbing “hasard objectif” this ironic look that Honoré δ'O takes at our relationship with open space, with this cosmos now offered, like a tourist product, to a new generation of pioneers.

Text obtained by the artist following a conversation with an AI system.

''Honoré d’O, a master of poetic enchantment, stimulates our sublime sensuality with an attention that is both guiding and misleading. He explores the delicate mutability between new civilization and lucid ritual, while inviting us to wander through the mindful depths of the enigma and the mysteries.

His work reflects a societal embrace of the eternal curiosity about the insufficient surroundings of existence. He contemplates biotopic diversity and unveils the brilliance of the homo universalis, even amidst a parcelling cruelty. Honoré d’O not only defies aesthetic fatality but provokes every painful fantasy about a visionary ethics that reconciles beauty with the voice of the fatal silent ones.

His work reveals the soul’s pleasure through intangible reliefs. He guides the mind toward a higher spiritual richness—from object to relationship, from relationship to construction, from construction to structure, from structure to method, and from method to behavior.

The light rests in the hands of the eye.''