Independent Art Fair 2018

Massinissa Selmani's drawings are inspired by political news, especially from cut-outs of the press that he has been collecting for many years. By confronting and juxtaposing these elements without logical coherence, the artist creates enigmatic and ambiguous scenes, underlining the ironic, even tragic character of the absurd and strange situations represented in his drawings.

Exhibition :
- Solo show, Disegni, Artissima, Turin, Italy, 2018

Exhibition :
- Solo show, Disegni, Artissima, Turin, Italy, 2018

Altérables is a project that consists of forming a series of images in the same process: images recovered from the printed press are photocopied and then retouched using one or more layers of transparent tracing paper, on each layer a drawing comes Duplicate, move or add an element, contour, etc. Present in the original image. The image thus modified is then scanned and put into another context and another medium undergoing the alterations due to the different transformation steps.

Exhibition:
- Ce qui coule n'a pas de fin, Palais de Tokyo, February, curator Yoann Gourmel, 16 - May, 13th  2018, Paris, France

Massinissa Selmani's drawings are inspired by political news, especially from cut-outs of the press that he has been collecting for many years. By confronting and juxtaposing these elements without logical coherence, the artist creates enigmatic and ambiguous scenes, underlining the ironic, even tragic character of the absurd and strange situations represented in his drawings.

In this series, Valérie Mréjen has enlarged details of postcards from the Archives of the city of Vienna. From these views with one or more characters, she proposes short fictional narratives that are inspired by the images. She rethinks their contexts, sometimes amusing, sensitive or disenchanted. Creating a link between image and narrative, Valérie Mréjen gives new life to these postcards, recalling their primary function as a medium for epistolary exchanges.

Exhibition :
- LISTE ROSE (1997-2017), Editions Dilecta, Paris, France, février 2018

La série LISTE ROSE a été réalisée en 1997 à partir de noms découpés dans un annuaire. Ces derniers forment des phrases, assemblées afin de créer des annonces dont le caractère licencieux fait écho au titre de la série. Ces collages, réalisés au début de la carrière de l'artiste, sont déjà révélateurs d'une démarche mettant en scène l'écriture, ici de manière humoristique en donnant un nouveau sens à des noms de famille.

This resin casting is the result of the slow pouring of water through a bed of silica and present the frozen image of a liquid continuum.  The subtle forms as much as the traced lines seem to be the emanation of an intelligence of water, a deep network of neurons, a self-generated sculpture which responds to it own logic.  Equally taking interest in the miniature and the maquette, this work pursues research initiated in older works such as États Inversées (Inverted States) or Inframince Mont-Blanc (Mont-Blanc Infrathin). 

Exhibitions:
- Vestiges d'une pensée tactile, Le Radar, Espace d'art actuel, Bayeux, France, 2019
- Le discret et le continu, Galerie Anne-Sarah Bénichou, Paris, France, 2018

N38W084 highlights patterns from topographic surveys, here those of a vast american territory. In the continuity of the Mille Mississipi series, the processing of the figures obtained and the work of color reveal a multitude of hydrographic networks of streams, rivers, metaphors or pretexts to dream in front of figures that become trees, neurological connections, plants or electrical forms...

Inverted Sates series have been created thanks to elevation data files and show monochromatic landscapes, rivers and mountains from the United States territory. Unless here after changing the light direction and so relief shading, the artist created an inverted landscape. Valleys became crests and mountains became depressions. So instead of offering the classic bird-eye view these maps gives us an exclusive view from underneath.

Kintsugi is a reconstitution of a statue damaged by the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki 9 August 1945. The truncated face of the Angel of Nagasaki is reconstituted here by the artist who presents the half of it that has been destroyed.  Produced in a block of white marble, this missing piece potentially repairs the figure of the Angel; it is a spectral and celestial alter ego of the human figure.

L'Ange de Nagasaki is a photography of the statue damaged by the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki 9 August 1945.  In the past it made up an integral part of the Urakami cathedral.  This angelic face was offered as a symbol of peace by the Japanese government to UNESCO in 1976.  It was subsequently placed in the institution's gardens in Paris.  The original statue is therefore  a document and a monument at once in that it was a direct witness to the atomic cataclysm and in the fact that the scars related to this event confer to it a powerful symbolic significance.  A monument then which remembers itself.

These images have been created thanks to elevation data files and show monochromatic landscapes, rivers and mountains from the United States territory. Unless here after changing the light direction and so relief shading, the artist created an inverted landscape. Valleys became crests and mountains became depressions. So instead of offering the classic bird-eye view these maps gives us an exclusive view from underneath.

Each Diagram offers the story of a selected dream made by the artist, realised on a notebook page. By removing the ribbon from a typewriter, the paper has been carved to create the letters and the words which make these scripts visible for our eyes.

Text

Je suis à Berlin, la ville est composée en croix avec de chaque côté des collines assez hautes. En haut de l'une d'elles, dans un hôtel de luxe, se tient une exposition. Pour s'y rendre le bus emprunte des routes de montagnes très escarpées, en passant les virages je vois des affleurements de roche blanche très particuliers, puis des roches translucides, comme du quartz rose et vert. C'est absolument magnifique. Au centre de l'exposition se trouve un grand crâne en silicone transparent. À l'intérieur de celui-ci on distingue l'empreinte d'un autre crâne. L'ensemble forme donc une sorte de membrane. À côté se trouve une paire de longs gants, sur ce même principe. Pour me montrer la finalité de son projet, l'artiste Christian Anderson enfile cette sorte de cagoule et je vois donc sa tête à l'intérieur de cette gangue, se superposant au profil du crâne dont il a fait le moule. La cagoule, ainsi que la paire de gants sont présentées dans une caisse en bois, où des cavités recueillent les objets.

With these series of sculptures, Julien Discrit develops research where the materials and forms are intimately intertwined. He pursues two reflections very important in his work: one on the minerals, crystals and stones, and another on the spatial, geological and temporal relationship between humankind and its environment. Like future fossils, these sculptures of human hands holding rocks represent an almost archaic gesture of gripping. In a snapshot, they propose a "becoming stone" that plays with both materials - organic and mineral mixed together in yet another piece made of reconstituted stone - but also with artistic and historical practices in the sense of inventing a contemporary aesthetic from an artificial archaeological ruin. It thus reveals the aesthetic forms already given in our environment like these stones which are in themselves finished sculptural forms.

With these series of sculptures, Julien Discrit develops research where the materials and forms are intimately intertwined. He pursues two reflections very important in his work: one on the minerals, crystals and stones, and another on the spatial, geological and temporal relationship between humankind and its environment. Like future fossils, these sculptures of human hands holding rocks represent an almost archaic gesture of gripping. In a snapshot, they propose a "becoming stone" that plays with both materials - organic and mineral mixed together in yet another piece made of reconstituted stone - but also with artistic and historical practices in the sense of inventing a contemporary aesthetic from an artificial archaeological ruin. It thus reveals the aesthetic forms already given in our environment like these stones which are in themselves finished sculptural forms.

With these series of sculptures, Julien Discrit develops research where the materials and forms are intimately intertwined. He pursues two reflections very important in his work: one on the minerals, crystals and stones, and another on the spatial, geological and temporal relationship between humankind and its environment. Like future fossils, these sculptures of human hands holding rocks represent an almost archaic gesture of gripping. In a snapshot, they propose a "becoming stone" that plays with both materials - organic and mineral mixed together in yet another piece made of reconstituted stone - but also with artistic and historical practices in the sense of inventing a contemporary aesthetic from an artificial archaeological ruin. It thus reveals the aesthetic forms already given in our environment like these stones which are in themselves finished sculptural forms.

Exhibitions:
- This is not a love song, Galerie Anne-Sarah Bénichou, Paris, France, 2018
- Life A User's Manual, Art Encounters, Contemporary Art Biennial , Timisoara, Romania, 2017