a_meublements, exposition du 15 juin au 15 octobre 2018, Centre d’art Faux Mouvement, Metz
Avec Franz Höfner, Hisae Ikenaga, Marie Legros, Ori Levin, Yo Ota, Gert Robijns, Jean-Christophe Roelens, Rémi Uchéda, Marie-France Uzac, Jacques Vieille
Talking about the TV sets that were in most American homes at the beginning of the 60s, Vito Acconci stated in a text written in 1964 that the domestic space welcomed into it a special type of furniture, one that had no practical role ; the TV canot be used as a piece of furniture; it can only be watched. It therefore has the useless function that is traditionally given to a work of art, and has taken the place of a specific piece of furniture, the place of a sculpture.
The word "furniture" is by definition anything that is not "immoveable" in other words anything that can be displaced. The displacement in this case is relevant for anything that can be moved, but also can change its use. What becomes of an object that loses its function? Beyond the ready-made, the furniture of our everyday existence can become not so much obsolete but also power-less. Having lost their place, useless, they are part of a new imaginary to which the space of everyday life becomes subverted. Good-bye to comfort, to practicality, to easiness. Our everyday world becomes an "ex-world" a souvenir, a trace. Patrick Nardin
Les torchons, 2000, série de 8 photographies, tirages analogiques d’après négatifs, 61 x 77 cm.
Premier travail en couleur, la série des torchons est portée par la tentative de traiter la couleur pour elle-même. Les torchons sont à la fois des objets sans qualités et investis d’une charge culturelle ancienne – voile de Véronique, suaire ou Mandylion se trouvent associés à l’histoire de l’abstraction au XXe siècle, de Malevitch à Supports/Surfaces.
La table, 2003, tirage analogique d’après négatif, 210 x 176 cm.
An emblem of family reunions, this table surrounded by its chairs is considered here as a motif. Freed from its function, it can admit other representations, other images, which can echo each other in the free-play of association or analogy.
Pension Anatoli Vassiliev, tirages analogiques d’après négatifs, 120 x 160 cm chaque.
Props, dramatic backdrop, this set of armchairs, upholstered in a floral fabric which matches the curtains and offers an imitation of middle-class comfort, was the center piece of the common room of four neighbouring bedrooms in a Moscow pension in 2001. This closed-off white cube, deprived of perspectives or openings, is reminiscent of a beckettian world whose irony is mitigated by the use of black and white which refuses to stress the gaudy colors of the room’s surfaces.