La part des choses / épisode # 3 (Still life)

With David Beattie, Thomas Bernardet, Hervé Bréhier, Matt Calderwood, Marc Geneix, Ingo Gerken, Sébastien Maloberti, Navid Nuur, Delphine Reist, Ariel Schlesinger.

At the invitation of Mains d'Œuvres, In Extenso presents the third show of La Part des Choses, a project comprised of five exhibitions, the first two of which were held in Nantes and Clermont-Ferrand.
DAVID BEATTIE
THOMAS BERNARDET
HERVÉ BRÉHIER
MATT CALDERWOOD
MARC GENEIX
INGO GERKEN
SÉBASTIEN MALOBERTI
NAVID NUUR
DELPHINE REIST
ARIEL SCHLESINGER
UNE PROPOSITION D'IN EXTENSO


La part des choses/STILL LIFE brings together, in Mains d'Œuvres' exhibition space, several "silent" works. Deliberately avoiding questioning these representations, this exhibition assembles sculptures and installations (prototypes ?) that all share a visible rejection of explanation, leaving themselves open to multiple interpretations. They are at once constructed from the world around us (through the use of materials recuperated from our quotidian environment : an ashtray, a radiator...) and yet shifted, from one context to another, their poetry lingering as they lose their sense, the transcendence of the tool. Although certain artists presented here might sometimes integrate an extensive studio transformation into their methods, the implementation of pieces shown here is based on simple, rudimentary methods, bringing us to the frontier of the ready-made, with something subtly added or changed. In the end, these systems, seem almost autonomously to seek their own degree of reality, and in doing so, question ours.
Plus d'informations : http://www.inextensoasso.com/

David Beattie

David Beae creates sculptures and installations that are so many attempts to comprehend certain natural pheno- mena. Through his own experimentation and references to historic scientific discoveries, he shows us to what extent scientific language has evolved in the function of our attempts to understand human existence. The experimental nature of his works, hands-on learning, is an important aspect of his methods. When invoking a physical element through his use of elementary objects and a low-tech aesthetic, Beae conserves a sense of excitement and discovery, as much for himself as for the viewer. David Beae's sculptural manipulations retain a minimalist aspect. The use of movement, image, sound, and physical phenomena all contribute to the creation of improbable combinations. In this sense, he forges new connections between materials as well as between objects that, at first glance, seem very different from one ano- ther. These entities, in a completely new associations, remain autonomous in their economy of form. Playing with a wide range of found objects, his works incorporate elements as diverse as an electric motor and a child's tambourine. By ingeniously de-contextualizing quotidian objects and technologies, he is therefore able to trans- form them into unique creations. David Beattie was born in 1976 in Ireland. He lives and works in Dublin. David Beattie's work is currently exhi- bited at the Mercer Union Center for Contemporary Art in Toronto, Canada (“The Weight of the Sky” : 19 March – 1 May). His work is also included in the collective exhibition “GESTURES : An Exhibition of Small Site-Specific Works,” at The Mattress Factory (8 May – 20 June). More information at http://www.david-beattie.net/

Thomas Bernardet

Out of reality, the common backdrop of symbols and objects surrounding us, Thomas Bernardet extracts or- dinary things which can then become part of a particular point of view. This personal vision integrates itself into the multitude of his cultural influences. His “gaze” seizes on what every “gaze” can see. It could be a simple day-to-day item, “a house, 100,000 euros” or more on the order of creative borrowing, from art history, for example. Thomas Bernardet therefore reaps from this reality whatever attracts his attention (a phrase, an object, a slo- gan, a situation, a place), letting it ripen in the form of “work documents” (photographs, sketches, a variety of notes). Out of this intuitively collected material, certain “documents,” after time, like images in photographs “reveal themselves” particularly well, appearing as “the reflection of a consciousness to which no one has been paying attention.” Thomas Bernardet is able, then, to re-enrich this collected object, and in a certain sense recompose its genome, rediscover its gravity, that which gives it weight, its signification. The result can be somewhat troubling, since the boundaries are not always clear between the mere document and the work of art. This boundary is often porous, even, inviting the viewer to make his own connections. The viewer must, in fact, unknot numerous issues : the status of the work, our relation to reality, a part of all collective represen- tation, a part of all personal projection. Thomas Bernardet was born in Fréjus in 1975. He lives and works in Bruxelles.

Hervé Bréhier

Hervé Bréhier constructs, classifies, gives orders, lashes out. He shifts the signification and usage of the spaces in which he intervenes. For his installations, he uses materials belonging to world of construction : roofing felt, polyurethane foam, polystyrene, door-panels, plumbing pipes, plaster, etc. His assemblages come together with the aid of clamps, tongs, bolts, straps, and belts, leaving clear evidence the zones of compression. These elements allow for a rich relationship with architecture. These three-dimensional projects are then put into dialogue with video. The latter functions above all a re- cording tool that captures, neutral and fixed, an action or natural phenomenon. With great simplicity and economy of means, Hervé Bréhier's work deploys a universe in which irony and the absurd rub elbows with a certain lightness and grace. Hervé Bréhier was born in 1969 in France. He lives and works in Saint-Ouen.

Matt Calderwood

Calderwood constructs unstable sculptures in which equilibrium provided only by a counterweight that sta- bilizes them. His sculptures, like his performances, require a perfect mastery on the part of the artist, and paradoxically enough, a combat between the artist and the objects he uses, most often quotidian ones. Born in 1975 in Ireland. Matt Calderwood lives and works in London. Matt Calderwood is currently preparing an exhibition at the Maria Stenfors gallery in London (June 2010).

Marc Geneix

Marc Geneix uses the palimpsest as a means of investigating contemporary reality. His work results from, and nourishes itself on, the capture of symbols issuing from the current world's media and cultu- ral reservoir. He proceeds from the snarling threads of micro-stories at the intersection of different ar- tistic processes, such as drawing, installation, and video. Blending codes arising from popular culture, [...] the artist enjoys mixing iconographies and stories while investigating the notion of a mythology, past, still in play, or already realizing itself. Following the temporal counterfeiting the Information Age, Marc Geneix departs from slips that become so many means of incursion, networking, or multiple entry into an attempt at inscription, or apprehension, of our world. Born in 1975 in France, Marc Geneix lives and works in Clermont-Ferrand.

Ingo Gerken

With "Eléments d'air," Ingo Gerken creates an "autonomous situation." This system, taking the form of cans of spray-paint posed on metal shelving, reorganizes the exhibition space into different lines and levels. Colored impacts are drawn across each plane facing the sprayers (walls, pillars, shelving). Arbitrarily creating links to the architecture, they underscore the interdependence of the work with the space accommodating it. Born in n 1971 in Germany. Ingo Gerken lives and works in Berlin. Ingo Kerken's work is currently included in the exhibition “City is Forever, Not Me” at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery in London (curated by Oliver Zwink) and in the exhibition “White Night” at the Markus Winter Gallery in Berlin (curated by Marco Antonini).

Sébastien Maloberti

Reworking such clichés and concepts as flow, machinery, and a certain abstraction of nature, Sébastien Malo- berti develops bastard tales that establish an investigation of the real that seeks itself where it escapes. Discar- ding, or attempting to realize, a certain convergence of things in playing with interior territories and supports for projections Born in 1976, Sébastien Maloberti lives and works in Clermond-Ferrand.

Sébastien Malloberti's work is currently part of the exhibition “Atelier/soft Machine” at the LUK in Budapest (29 March – 22 May). He is also part of “Workshop” (25 May – 15 June) at the Nicolas Pomel center, Issoire.

Navid Nuur

Navid Nuur uses the neologism “interimodules” to describe his works, as opposed to “sculptures” or “ins- tallations.” For him, the latter terms are too rigid to encompass the spacio-temporal link he hopes to create with the “looker.” It is for the same reason that Nuur rejects the term “site-specific” that is often used to describe his work. He prefers “interimodules,” because it defines an intermediary territory. “Module” for his manner of thinking and conceptualizing, “interim” to relate to a demarcated time and space, all of which reveals a part of his work process : a process made up of rules and protocols, but in which intuition is also a decisive factor.
David Nuur was born in Tehran in 1976. He lives and works in the Hague. His work is currently exhibited at the Frans Halls Museum in Harlem (“The value of the void” : 20 March – 6 June). He is also part of the exhibition “History of art” at the David Roberts Foundation in London (6 May – 19 June). More information at http://www.davidnuur.nl

Delphine Reist

Delphine Reist has often intervened in vacant lots and abandoned industrial buildings, interested by the absence in these emotionally charged spaces. The tools and objects of production that populate her works seem to acquire, in the solitude of these spaces, an autonomous existence. From this point on, a sort of social body manifests itself, which we hesitate to classify between that, ghostlike, of their past masters, or something newly created by these machines themselves : trolleys that move unaided in parking lots, rubber boxes that mark rhythms in rounds, boarding school sinks that inexplicably fill with milk... The atmos- phere is that of collective spaces without warmth, the motors are loud and out of control, the liquids are viscous and rank. An existence unfolds, leaving the visitor full of his incapacity to act. Beyond the poetry of mechanics in movement, Delphine Reist's work takes on a manifestly militant dimension, making visible the dark flipside of contemporary life.
Delphine Reist was born in Switzerland in 1970. She lives and works in Berlin. She is currently part of the exhibition “Portrait de l'artiste en motocycliste” at the fine arts museum La chaux-de-fonds in Switzerland (21 March – 12 September 2010). She is also preparing a personal exhibition at the Galerie Lange + Pult in Zurich.

Ariel Schlesinger

The contrasts in Ariel Schlessinger's work are striking, contrasts between the baseness of the (often recoup) materials he employs and the final form they take. Such a transformation seems almost like a magic trick, yet there's no well-guarded secret here : the "stuff" is often simple, and generally recognizable at first glance. His works are the nearly instantaneous manifestations of his rapport with "things." He selects, harvests, and acts as a catalyst on that what we generally consider inert and lifeless. In a welcome attempt at reanimation, this artist's work turns to confrontation with the void, with humor and ingenuity as his only weapons.
Born in 1980 in Israel. Ariel Schlesinger lives and works in Berlin.

In Extenso*

In Extenso is a resolutely unorthodox association that seeks to multiply the possibilities for artistic interven- tion with the goal of promoting and supporting contemporary creation, all with an uncommonly free spirit. Founded in 2002 by Marc Geneix and Sébastien Maloberti, it is currently presided over by Céline Ahond and directed by Martial Déflacieux. In Extenso has, among other things, presented the first performance by Jona- than Meese in France and produced the work entitled O'BLACK (ATELIER CLANDESTIN) by Malachi Farrell, as part of the exhibition DIONYSIAC at the Centre Georges Pomidou in Paris. More recently, In Extenso has exhibited, for the first time in France, artists such as David Beattie and Christoph Meier.

complete program is available at www.inextensoasso.com

In extenso 12 rue de la coifferie 63000 Clermont-Ferrand

0981842652

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