| Can these small bronze pieces - which, technically
and visually, seem to draw on a classical repertoire - be considered
as sculptures? They would be closer to being objects if the world
of the object were not geared toward a utilitarian view of design,
as art turned toward a technological future. But it is more a question
of familiarity and intimate connection with these metal subjects,
which embody the meeting between a literary virtuality and objective
bodies. This series of portraits of artists and writers is, above all, about pleasure, and passion. It deals with the recognition of an artist, cherished for his work and as the creator of a powerful vision. These portraits evoke an image of the artist, while presenting themselves as aesthetic objects in their own right. The aim is for true likeness, while allowing the subject's identity to be expressed through the use of the most easily shaped material of all: red wax. Once the sculpture is modeled in wax, it is cast in bronze using the lost wax technique. The caster works the bronze using oxidation to create different colors, mat and shiny surfaces, with the pigments revealed by the interplay of reappearing elements. Bronze is also an appropriate medium for these diminutive pieces, serving as a metaphor that evokes the emancipation of man through the discovery of metal. It opens up new relationships with density, contact, sublimating the violence of wrought weapons so as to render less precarious the trails left by dreams, even into the secret world, like the first African blacksmiths who cast their work in the sandy ground, or Prometheus, or artists from Asia Minor who created the first bronze ibexes. The intimacy of these pieces is one of their virtues, as is their capacity to inquire into the true lives of their unavowed authors: the writers and artists themselves. We have chosen only artists and writers from the 20th century, primarily as an affirmation of the present as a major magnetic force to be explored. Incidentally, one of the authors represented has indulged in the narcissistic pleasure of feeling the weight of his bronze portrait in his own hands... |
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