in Zérodeux, hiver 2009/2010 N°52.
The exhibition Sculpture Sparsile Six Pack +33% free, Un Gant et Une Exécution by Yann Géraud occupies the spaces of the Frac Basse- Normandie with the efficiency of a logic sensitive to architectural volumes.
The first room is invaded by Sculpture Sparsile Six Pack +33% free, a sculpture composed of eight stalls or workshops reproducedto scale 1. The impossibility of taking in the work all at once and the saturation of the field of vision assail the visitor. The strategy of outgrowth and ever more is announced in the very title of the work by a promotional formula borrowed from the packaging of a pack of beer: 6 + 33% (= 8). There are eight identical modules to wander between. The spaces are not totally enclosed, but it’s impossible to physically enter them; only the gaze crosses from one module to the next, following perspectives where a multitude of visual information is juxtaposed. Quotations borrowed from consumer culture rub shoulders with expressionist papier-mâché landscapes, references to the madness of Romantic genius and poetic-sounding scientific terms (such as «sparsile», an astronomical term for a shapeless star that doesn’t belong to any constellation).
The visual tangle of metal rails creates as many volumes as it deconstructs. Faux-wood doors have been pierced to reveal their card- board matrix, new DIY tools have been brought in, and paints hung by cables are arranged as if they were drying. The points of view are multiplied, and despite the density of the space, the arrangement of the modules, face to face and back to back, makes it possible to memorize the assembly identically repeated from one unit to the next. The first impression of compulsive accumulation quickly gives way to the hypothesis of a serious delirium: an obsession with a single scene or the reconstitution of an imaginary place. The theater of operations is this workshop, or at any rate what appears to be a production site for works, sets or folk artifacts. Each module reads like a scenario or a freeze-frame inhabited by meticulously placed object.
Nothing is left to chance, the mastery of creative flows engenders a universe of simulation, a space to accommodate the artist’s personal fiction. A sense of absurd, cynical rationality emanates from this complex assemblage, in which the decor and its reverse side merge. In the transitional space leading to the stairs, a second sculpture reproduces five times the same cast of one of the artist’s fingers, pain- ted in matt grey. These small displays, painted bright orange and held in place by aluminum rails, are lined up one behind the other. The obsession with serial production continues, promising standardized yet manual mass production.
Upstairs, Execution is placed in the center of the room. Opposite this work, Un Gant by Noël Dolla has been selected by the artist, enriching Géraud’s own practice with a didactic (curatorial) articulation. He contrasts his work Exécution with Un Gant de Dolla, which is said to have washed the paint off it, or which in turn needs to be washed of its paint. Unlike Géraud’s work, Dolla’s hangs on the wall. The selected work blurs the linear approach induced by a solo exhibition. Sculpture Sparsile Six Pack +33% free, Un Gant et Une Exécution opens the floodgates to color and a handmade universe, anchoring a discourse on the broader field of sculpture. Géraud’s works are tal- kative, but the interest for this qualifier is certainly to be found elsewhere than in the redundant, even stereotyped iconographic content of the fight for life or for art. The exhibition focuses on sculpture and its history. In Sculpture Sparsile Six Pack +33% free, images of an antique statue, whose eyes are treated with a smooth, non-anatomical rendering, are arranged in a frieze on a bench. Casting, a primary sculptural technique, is a recurrent element in Géraud’s formal language. Sculpture Sparsile Six Pack +33% free surrounds the visitor and contrasts with Execution, around which one must turn as if to appreciate a sculpture in the round. A final reference to the historical state of sculpture is the appropriation of existing or ready-made objects. Yann Géraud rethinks figurative sculpture and reappropriates the principle that sculpture should produce meaning or carry a message. With Un Gant, he concludes by tending towards abstraction, the object is absorbed into the color and it becomes a matter of painting.