Kaléidoscope du réel

The clew is a recurrent pattern in Decebal Scriba's work. It takes on a strong symbolic and philosophical dimension, the rope referring to the idea of an initiatory journey, or even the course of existence. Composed of entanglements of yarn sometimes ordered, sometimes chaotic, it introduces a reflection on existential dilemmas.
This symbol is also used in drawings during state exhibitions and, under the guise of sobriety and innocence, allows the artist to escape the risk of censorship.

Depuis les années 2000, Marion Baruch intervient sur des chutes de tissus de l'industrie textile milanaise. Rebuts de la société industrielle, le potentiel esthétique et formel de ces matériaux est mis en lumière par l'artiste qui les trie, les sélectionne et les arrange. Composés de pleins comme de vides, ces oeuvres se font les négatifs des formes qui y ont été découpées et constituent tout autant de géométries flexibles. Ils convoquent des histoires aussi bien sociales, artistiques et politiques qu'individuelles et sensibles; La lampe dans ma cuisine, en renvoyant à un lieu et un objet directement issus de la mémoire de l'artiste, se fait le témoignage de cette dimension autobiographique.

Grand rideau (1) is a drawing produced from a photograph of a laced curtain, reminding of kitsch subjects which often reappear in the artist's work. Through a process of picture transformation, which leads her to play of the scale ration and to emphasize on the details, she creates a filter between the artwork and those who are looking at it, and allow the appearance of a new reality with the loss of the primary subject. The use of charcoal, and consequently of black and white lead to reinforce the subject abstraction by dissolving the artworks' patterns, which contribute even more to lose the viewer landmarks.

Ballon summons banal everyday objects that the artist magnifies with the texture of charcoal. By reproducing the defects of the photograph on the tracing paper, Mireille Blanc affirms the singularity of the pictorial act and reveals the mechanisms of representation and its tricks. In the background, the context of the scene evaporates and gives the subject blurred contours in an atmosphere of strangeness. The motif of the balloon is transformed into an abstract object whose roundness is sublimated by the play of light and shadow.

Cette œuvre est une réplique d’un cerf-volant porte antenne, l’un des tout premiers dispositifs permettant la réception d’ondes radioélectriques de basses et moyennes fréquences via l’élévation d’une antenne radioélectrique.

Immediacy is a work consisting of a portable cassette tape recorder that records ambient sounds onto an endless cassette, erasing what has just been recorded onto the tape as it goes along.

Cette oeuvre s'inscrit dans la continuité de la série des Pensées ou des Chants d'oiseaux ; des autogénérées, faites de traces et de cheminements rendent l'intervention artistique dépendante de facteurs aléatoires. Réalisée à partir du frottage d'une planche de parquet à la mine de plomb, elle vient sublimer les nervures du bois et les galeries creusées par les insectes, composant autant de motifs évoquant un dessin ou bien une forme d'écriture mystérieuse.

The clew is a recurrent pattern in Decebal Scriba's work. It takes on a strong symbolic and philosophical dimension, the rope referring to the idea of an initiatory journey, or even the course of existence. Composed of entanglements of yarn sometimes ordered, sometimes chaotic, it introduces a reflection on existential dilemmas.
This symbol is also used in drawings during state exhibitions and, under the guise of sobriety and innocence, allows the artist to escape the risk of censorship.

The title of this piece is borrowed from the shofar, an ancient musical horn used for Jewish religious purposes. This instrument is blown on two different celebrations:  Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, and on Yom Kippur, the day of the atonement. If we instead focus on the material of these artworks, we can grasp another layer of meaning that refers to the junction of two opposing states connected by a medium. Indeed, the finite connotation of the term ?artwork? does not really apply to these horns as they are two wax casts. A cast represents a state in between a real object and a future object, an original and a replica. Montaron is interested in the liminal state inhabited by these fragile works that endows them to function as a reproduction tool, that, in the same way as a photographic negative does, steals the ?now? and ?where?- to borrow Benjamin?s words-  of the object being cast.

In NEWST, Julien Discrit draws from his studies in geography by transforming a functional and technical object into an artwork. The artist reproduces a small standard cube in brass used to measure the scale as well as the orientation of objects during archaeological excavations, meteorite expeditions or geological prospecting studies. This cube is oriented according to the cardinal points that give it its title to the artwork. In a post-minimalist vein, NEWST questions the status of technical tools, the perception we have of them and the fine line between a work of art and a functional object.

The performance The Invisible Message is a reenactment of the first experiment of wireless communication. In 1866 Malhon Loomis claimed to have used two kits to transmit signals through the air; the experiment was done in Virginia (US) on the Blue Ridge Mountains, between two locations fourteen miles apart. Each kite acted as an antenna, thanks to the natural static electricity in he atmosphere, channeled by a copper wire, one end tight to the kite, the other tight to the ground with a metal rod. The experiment at that time consisted of setting up a transmitter / receiver system. The people conducting the experiment set their watches and at predetermined intervals and sent a signal by connecting the wire to the ground. The receiver observed the movement of a galvanometer needle. The Invisible Message was reenacted in 2011 for Performa 11; one location was the Socrates Sculpture Park and the other the Lighthouse Park in Roosevelt Island.