“… This leads me to say that one must love the Circus and despise the world. A huge beast, coming from antediluvian times, lands heavily on cities: one enters, and the monster was full of mechanical and cruel wonders: equestriennes, augusts, lions and their tamer, a magician, a juggler, German trapeze artists, a horse that talks and counts, and you.”
— Jean Genet, The Tightrope Walker, L’Arbalète, Décines, 1958
Epithumia or the Circus of Emotions
Epithumia: Covetousness, desire, passion for what is forbidden, lust.
For Plato, epithumia refers to desire, covetousness, or longing. Often associated with concupiscent passions, sensual desires, and carnal appetites, it is seen as a driving force that can steer human actions toward the fulfillment of these desires. Yet, when left unchecked, epithumia can give rise to excess and destruction, affecting both the self and others.
As such, it is a force of desire that can be channeled constructively, while the life and death drives represent the fundamental forces that govern the human psyche, influencing individuals’ behaviours and motivations.
For Nasreddine Bennacer, the circus is a place where emotions and passions reach their peak. Beneath the big top, performances—whether acrobatic, comedic, or dramatic—hold the power to mesmerize, drawing the audience into a realm of wonder and suspense. The circus is a place where heightened desires and fervent impulses merge into epithumia. The tamers, jugglers, fire-breathers, and performers push the limits of physical possibility, stirring the senses and igniting the appetite for spectacle. One must recall that in ancient Rome, the games of the circus were not mere entertainment but culminations of violence, where death itself became a spectacle, both awaited and desired by the crowd.
How, then, can we grasp the role of destructiveness in creation? What are the mechanisms of sublimation, and how does the death drive play out in the artistic process? With Nasreddine, the artwork becomes a stage—an arena where catastrophe and trauma are enacted. Yet, through the creative act, he tempers their violence, harnessing the transformative power of sublimation. Art, in this sense, stands as both a shield against dissolution and annihilation while transmuted into something enduring, at once conjuring and cathartic. By revealing the interplay of opposing forces within his work, the artist offers an escape from the tyranny of desire and impulse.
Epithumia, or the Circus of Emotions.
Curation: Pascal Odille
