BARCELONA.- This is the last exhibition in the Perplexity cycle, curated by David Armengol, and based on the state of bewilderment and perplexity that we feel when faced with things we cannot understand. Previous exhibitions in the cycle featured the work of Jordi Mitjà, Gabriel Pericàs, Julia Montilla and Arrieta/Vázquez.

Schreber’s delirious world is the starting point for Samuel Labadie’s self-critical exploration of his own condition as an artist. The Examined Soul includes drawings, sculptures, objects and small-format videos. The title is based on a concept used by Schreber to define those lost souls in search of a ‘divine connection’.

The works are installed following a plan of the Sonnestein sanatorium, drawn by Schreber himself. The titles of the works refer to the clinic’s wards illustrated by the author during his stay in the sanatorium. Labadie dedicates the central exhibition space to the more conceptual works. The second part, installed in a corridor next to the gallery space, includes a series of images and objects related to the artist’s daily practice in his studio.

The central piece in the exhibition, Enclos (Enclosure), refers to the title of the show and suggests the material concept of the soul developed by Schreber. It is composed of a series of sculptures made of fragments of coal created by a combination of sulphuric acid and sugar that turns liquids into solids.

Schreber’s description of inner voices and his mental imaginings are particularly attractive to Labadie who explores them in the next work in the exhibition: the audiovisual piece Grande Salle (Great Hall) presents a performance half-way between the animal and the sensitive. Taking part are a Death Metal singer and a girl whistling a poem by Baudelaire. The third piece in the central part of the exhibition is the work Jardin (Garden), a sequence of graphic elements on the variations of the sun, another reoccurring theme in Schreber’s mind.

The second part of the exhibition takes place in the corridor next to the gallery space and includes a series of objects related to Labadie’s daily work in his studio. Presented as a trilogy, the works Salon A, Salon B and Salon C allude to Schreber’s discourse on the relation between language and the human body. This triple piece includes objects such as a cloth made by the artist’s mother suggesting the nervous system; a bookcase filled with the same edition of a science fiction book on the absence of organs; and a poster with words related to the human body’s internal organs.

This part of the exhibition is completed with the collection of drawings and collages Diverses chambres et cabinet de toilette (Various rooms and toilet) and the video-sculpture Chambre (Room), a microscopic image of spermatozoids accompanied by a loud-speaker as a parodic approximation to the origin of life.

Finally, and as a beginning and end to the exhibition, Escalier (Staircase) is installed in the staircase leading down to Espai 13. It shows the French edition of the book Memoirs of my Mental Illness with interventions by the artist on Schreber’s portrait. The tiny balls of chewing gum on the eyes refer to Labadie’s way of looking at Schreber’s autobiographical account.

Perplexity, the cycle of exhibitions of which The Examined Soul is part, deals with the tension we feel when faced with things we cannot understand. In this case, The Examined Soul relates to the concept guiding the cycle by exposing the limits between that which is considered normal and that which is relegated to the margins, such as Schreber’s mental illness.

Samuel Labadie was born in France in 1978. In 1997–2002 he studied art at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Lyon. He has worked as an artist and art teacher in Paris and Bayonne, where he was supported by the Prix de Paris grant awarded by the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, in 2002, and the grant Aide à la jeune creation awarded by the Drac Aquitaine, in 2005.

In 2006 he worked in his studio in Bayonne, where he developed the idea of a dialogue between culture and symbols, which has become a constant in his artistic work.

After participating in several projects in Barcelona (Processos Oberts 4, Obsesión cycle in Mollet), he moved to Barcelona in 2007 attracted by the context of emerging art in the city.

In Barcelona he took part in the exhibition La Liberación Cómica, curated by David Armengol in the MasArt gallery. He had a residency in the centre of production Hangar, where he participated in several projects such as Se Busca, presented at the MACBA Auditorium in 2010, and the exhibition La Gran Aventura in Can Felipa.

He is currently an artist-in-residence at the centre Experimentem amb l’ART, Barcelona.

The exhibition is on view at Fundació Joan Miró through 1 September, 2013.