08 October 2010 - 02 January 2011
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| © Didier Marcel
L’arbre aux chaînes, 2009
Courtesy Le Consortium |
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DIDIER MARCEL
"Sommes-nous l’élégance"
October 8, 2 010 - January 2, 2011
Didier Marcel borrows from reality and sculpts from life. Whether the
imprint is taken from the living or the mineral, and whether the model
itself is artificial, the choice hinges systematically on a highly
personal rapport with the banal: with everything that's ordinary and
invisible, everything that merges with the landscape.
For the ARC Marcel has come up with something like the last stage of a
work in progress, the bit you only get to see on opening day. From one
project to another there's an ongoing something or other, a kind of
attempt at documenting reality, some endlessly renewed Sisyphean
operation. But then his work always contains this radical questioning of
man's engagement with nature.
His method is founded on mise en abîme, on the realisation that the
natural is itself something staged, to the point where it is all but
impossible to sort out the true from the false. The artist samples
fragments of man-made landscapes, then reproduces them artificially
before situating them in the pared-down setting of the museum.
Didier Marcel was part of the ARC Workshops of 1988 and won the first
Ricard Foundation prize in 1999. He has had a number of solo
exhibitions, notably at MAMCO in Geneva (2005), the Musée d’Art Moderne
et Contemporain in Strasbourg (2006) and MUDAM in Luxembourg (2009). He
is also a contributor to the art segment of the new Paris tramline T3
East.
Didier Marcel was born in Besançon in 1961. He lives and works in Dijon.
Curator general: Fabrice Hergott
Exhibition curator : François Michaud
With the generous support of groupe Galeries Lafayette, exclusive sponsor of the exhibition.
www.mam.paris.fr |