Wild! / Simbriquer
Wild! was a solo exhibition presenting a body of ten sculptures specially designed for the gardens of the Maladrerie in Beauvais, Northen France.
The Maladrerie used to be a hospital welcoming people infected with leprosa. It presents an outstanding ensemble of buildings, including an immense and somptuous medieval barn, medicinal gardens and other green spaces.
In 2010, the director of the art school of Beauvais (Ecole d'Art du Beauvaisis), Clotilde Boitel, initiated a project called S'imbriquer", a verb built on the French word "brick" and which means "to overlap", "to interweave", "to interlink". This project aimed at interlinking the space and history of the Maladrerie, the activity of the local brick factory and the work of International artists interested in working with bricks.
The participating artists were: Marc Alberghina, Anne Barres, Coralie Courbet, Etienne Fleury, Philippe Godderidge, Jeffrey Haines, Jacques Kaufmann, Agathe Larpent, Bernard Pages, Daniel Pontoreau, Matthew Raw, Wades Saunders, Kozo Takeuchi, Lise Terdjman, Rudy Toulotte and Véronique Delplace.
I spent one month in the De Wulf brick factory, going daily to the Maladrerie too. I had initially planned to use the extraordinary Hoffman kiln of the factory and to build sculptures from the raw local clay, but it proved impossible given the length of a firing (6 weeks) and the date of the exhibition opening.
I decided to try and work with bricks, debris of bricks and found objects and made a series of monsters aimed at suggesting how past and future are intertwined.
I worked in collaboration with the gardeners and planned a small installation of three sculptures meant to enhance the area planted with wheat, oat and wax:
in Fratrie (brotherhood), the same local clay is used to make the three elements: on the right hand-side is a compact amount of overfired and reduced bricks; in the middle stands a small tower made of glazed tiles; on the left hand-side stands an element made of debris of bricks assembled with cement on a body of bricks.
It is also a theme that constantly nourishes my work
See Fratrie and other works from the exhibition Wild!
Buy the Catalogue of the exhibition "S'imbriquer autour de la brique" (in French), containing interviews of all the artists.
Read my interview in the catalogue.
See the presentation of the exhibition on the website of the city of Beauvais.