Laissez passer A 38 I, 2026

Julien Barriol  

This work explores the saturation of language in our contemporary daily lives. Against a background made up of fragments of administrative documents, red typographic writing unfolds in structured lines, evoking an organized text whose reading nevertheless remains impossible.

The writing, asemic and invented by the artist Julien Barriol, is constructed from administrative stamps such as "invoice," "paid," "false," "urgent," or "invalid." Diverted from their original function, these words are assembled to form signs and sequences reminiscent of a writing system, without ever conveying an explicit message.

This linear organization suggests an attempt to rationalize and order language, quickly undermined by the impossibility of reading. The gaze oscillates between recognition and loss of meaning, confronted with an accumulation of signs that mimics communication while simultaneously revealing its limitations.

Through this work, the artist questions our relationship to administrative systems and contemporary information flows, where the proliferation of messages ultimately produces a form of confusion and distance from meaning.