Superman, Batman & Co... mics! Rental file

Transcription

1 Superman, Batman & Co... mics! Rental file

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 01 Global concept and spatial arrangement Artists Series 1 - Gilles Barbier s paintings Series 2 - Mathias Schmied s cuttings Series 3 - Adrian Tranquilli s sculptures Series 4 - Audrey Piguet s photographs Series 5 - Alexandre Nicolas inclusions Technical sheet Exhibition material Costs Pictures Mix of press samples 14 Contacts

3 GLOBAL CONCEPT AND SPATIAL ARRANGEMENT No summer goes by without a blockbuster on superheroes nor a week without a broadcast on their adventures (in: Jean-Marc Lainé, Super-héros! La Puissance des masques, 2011). Coming from the comic books imagination, these stylish characters have seized our cinemas, our televisions, our newspapers and our toys stores. However, if they are so present in our everyday life, it is because they seem to speak to and about our human nature. It is for exploring this phenomenon that Maison d Ailleurs decided to pay tribute to those mythical heroes with an original perspective the one of contemporary art. The exhibition Superman, Batman & co mics! features the artworks of five European artists working on five classical artistic techniques (sculpture, painting, composition, inclusion, photography) in a project that reveal the symbolism of superheroes. In a world tortures by foreseen obsolescence, identity troubles, difficulties to find our own place and an ever rising feeling of insecurity, the superhero seems to be our most-accurate mirror: far from the superhuman gifted with infinite powers he used to be, he shows more and more his uncertainties and his weaknesses. The five artists of the exhibition look into our intimacies, sometimes gained by disarray, and invite us to understand that these superheroes are in fact the distorted images of our individualities. We are, in a certain sense, superheroes. Five Artworks series: 1. Gilles Barbier s paintings 2. Mathias Schmied s cuttings 3. Adrian Tranquilli s sculptures 4. Audrey Piguet s photographs 5. Alexandre Nicolas inclusions 01

4 ARTISTS Series 1 Gilles Barbier s paintings Trained at the Marseille-Luminy Art School and co-founder of the Astéride Association, Gilles Barbier (1965) is a French artist whose favourite modes of expression are sculptures, drawings, installations and words. In the seven paintings, which constitute the series presented in this exhibition, the superheroes are usually reduced to a simple concept ( The Obese, The Emmentalist, The Fog ). It is clear that Gilles Barbier is seeking to show how much some of our everyday notions are superhero-ised but also, more generally, how the codes with which the superheroes are presented to us echo with the History of Art. Example The Obese Obesity a depreciated social attribute is depicted here as a superpower : the guy is telling us I m gonna feed you, boy, armed with his ham. The Obese appears then as un product created by our consumer society, whose excesses we are enduring reflect themselves on the body of this character. The Obese posca and acrylic on polyester layer 224 x cm Private collection Courtesy Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois Gilles Barbier,

5 Series 2 Mathias Schmied s cuttings Mathias Schmied (1976) is a French-Swiss artist who graduated from the Fine- Arts School of Lyon and some of whose artworks now belong to the permanent collections of the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York) and to the Fonds National d Art Contemporain (Paris). Mathias Schmied s work is the result of a very subtle scalpel intervention on basic materials such as comic books which are to be considered as the elementary blocks from which he materializes his thoughts. Absents or omnipresents from Mathias cuttings, superheroes are enhanced, freed from the pages or, on the contrary, stucked in their strips. Mathias Schmied destroys with the help of his scalpel, but for the purpose of rebuilding better. Example FWWITT Spider-Man the main superheroes in the work of Mathias Schmied is here surrounded by a real web woven by the comic books strips. Thus, he seems to be the prisoner of the narrative plot of his own stories. FWWITT Cut-up comics 27.5 x 35.5 cm Courtesy Galerie Houg Mathias Schmied,

6 Series 3 Adrian Tranquilli s sculptures Born in Melbourne and trained in anthropology, Adrian Tranquilli (1966) lives and works in Rome. His career has been punctuated by many exhibitions: at the Contemporary Art Museum in Rome, at La Maison Rouge in Paris, at the Kunsthalle in Vienna and at the Dalí Museum in Florida. With the help of his four sculptures one of which, After the West, was produced particularly for the Maison d Ailleurs, the artist finds a way to reflect, through the superheroes shapes, upon our human condition and upon Art. Adrian s heroes are presented in their most fragile aspect, revealing their hidden pains and their vulnerability. Example This is not a Love Song 1 This Superman, crucified like Jesus Christ, reminds us that if we are invented several mythiological figures that give sense to our beings, it is for killing them in favor of our secret desires to build others behavioral patterns. Series 4 Audrey Piguet s photographs Audrey Piguet (1989) graduated from the Vevey Photography School in 2012 and won the second place at the 16th Prix des Jeunes Talents Suisses (VGF) for her series The Fall of the Hero, exhibited at Maison d Ailleurs and, previously, at the ELAC (Lausanne), at the Oslo Gallery 8 (Basel) and at the Jungkunst (Winterthur). Audrey Piguet s aesthetic establishes an ironical distance between the superheroes traditional symbolic. They appear here exhausted, vulnerable, racked with doubts. Their traditional shiny costumes contrast with the pathetic that emerge of their expressions, their behaviors and their fragility. Example Wonder Woman This old Wonder Woman usually the symbol of the strong and the beautiful feminity seems to be sad, exhausted and fragile. Thus, a superhero who is trying to deal with the same existential problems than us. 04

7 This is not a Love Song 1 Polystyrene, resin and gold, 190 x 40 x h 175 cm Private collection Adrian Tranquilli, 2005 The Fall of the Hero Wonder Woman Digital photography, 120 x 160 cm Audrey Piguet,

8 Series 5 Alexandre Nicolas inclusions Alexandre Nicolas (1970) receives the Superior Diploma of Plastic Expression from the Toulouse s School of Fine-Arts in Since 1994, he starts working intensively with synthetic crystal a difficult material, perfectly transparent, which requires permanent technical skills. Technique, manipulation, transformation and experimentation are the keywords of his creative work. This series of foetuses frozen in crystal symbolizes the imperious demands imposed on us since our birth and during our entire life like those super heroes? Super-husbands or super-wives, super-parents or super-athletes, do we still have the choice to be? Like the French artist s foetuses prisoners of an invisible but very real resin block it seems that we are born imprisoned from the world, immured in the others transparent and hard desires. Example Jokerfœtus Even the super-vilains are stucked in their destiny, seems to reminds us Alexandre Nicolas. The Joker Batman traditional Nemesis is here prisoner of his character, whereas he s still not born. Jokerfœtus Inclusion, synthesis cristal 23 x 23 x h 33 cm Alexandre Nicolas,

9 TECHNICAL SHEET Exhibition material Summary overview of the material: Gilles Barbier 7 paintings, posca and acrylic on polyester layer 3x 224 x cm 1x x 224 cm 1x 112 x cm 1x 224 x cm 1x 336 x cm Mathias Schmied 43 cut-up comics on paper Various dimensions: from 13.4 x 21.8 cm to 64 x 99 cm Adrian Tranquilli 4 sculptures, polystyrene, resin and gold 190 x 40 x h 175 cm 60 x 85 x h 165 cm 240 x 160 x h 120 cm 80 x 70 x h 120 cm x 130 cm Audrey Piguet 9 digital photographs 4x - 70 x 50 cm 4x - 50 x 70 cm 1x x 160 cm Alexandre Nicolas 12 inclusions, synthesis cristal 6x 23 x 23 x h 33 cm 6x 21 x 21 x h 31 cm Costs The rental costs of the exhibition Superman, Batman & Co... mics! is The installation, the dismantling, the transports (way and back) and the insurances nail-to-nail shall be a matter for the renter. It shall also be a matter for the renter to invite two people of the museum for participating in the installation of the exhibition and in the opening ceremony of the show (including the travel expanses, the hotel nights and the per diem). 07

10 Pictures Gilles Barbier 08

11 Mathias Schmied 09

12 Adrian Tranquilli 10

13 Audrey Piguet & Alexandre Nicolas 11

14 Date: Mix of press samples 20 Minuten AG 4003 Basel 061/ Genre de média: Médias imprimés N de thème: Type de média: Presse journ./hebd. N d'abonnement: Tirage: 83'608 Parution: 5x/semaine Page: 2 Surface: 17'572 mm² NBC News - Web (USA) minuten - Press (CH-DE) Observation des médias Analyse des médias Gestion de l'information Services linguistiques ARGUS der Presse AG Rüdigerstrasse 15, case postale, 8027 Zurich Tél , Fax Réf. Argus: Coupure Page: 1/1 Rapport page: 1/131 Israel Hayom - Press (Israel)

15 Le Temps - Press (CH-FR) minuti - Press (CH-IT) L Hebdo - Press (CH-FR)

16 Maison d Ailleurs Museum of science fiction, utopia and extraordinary journeys Place Pestalozzi 14 Case Postale 945 CH Yverdon-les-Bains T : F : maison@ailleurs.ch Contact Marc Atallah, Director-curator of Maison d Ailleurs T : matallah@ailleurs.ch