In recent years, « eco-awareness » or eco-citizenship and sustainable development have taken center stage. Waste sorting and new consumption patterns have become part of everyday life for many of us. Contemporary artists, concerned by these issues, are constantly raising our awareness of this social problem, and are sometimes able to detect in certain materials or common waste an unsuspected potential for artistic proposals.
Exposition Rehab, l'art de re-faire
Until February 20, 2011, the exhibition REHAB, l’art de re-faire (short for rehabilitation), presented at Espace Fondation EDF, invites us to take a journey alongside artists whose works, with their unexpected aesthetic qualities, divert familiar, domestic or everyday objects, offering new creative artistic experiences through the re-use of abandoned or discarded items. These works invite us to rediscover materials we thought we’d seen the last of, from Formica furniture to cardboard packaging.
Gitte Schäfer Ahoi, 2004 bois, cuivre, 193 x 24 cm courtesy l’artiste et Galerie Chez Valentin, Paris
Sculptures, videos, photographs and installations are the preferred means and media employed by the fifteen or so artists working in France and abroad and brought together by Bénédicte Ramade. The richness of their work illustrates the ability of these artists, each in their own way, to cultivate the double dimension of waste: be both a resolutely contemporary material with ambitious physical properties and a subject perfectly in tune with the most pressing social issues, such as the environment.
Without passing judgment, these architects, designers, landscape architects and artists use their work to subtly take part in this highly topical social debate. The exhibition, spread over several floors, highlights their commitment and puts into perspective the major issues facing our society, namely the environment and eco-citizenship.
Steve Lyons Loch Ness, 2009-2010, installation, technique mixte, dimensions variables Courtesy l’artiste
Right from the outset, the first floor gets us into the swing of things with its Revelation, inevitably sending us back to nature, which is being sacrificed day by day. All the works presented question the identity of waste, between reused and decommissioned materials, presenting a vision that goes far beyond the simple condition of waste, a new perspective. We’re delighted to discover the installation by Canadian artist Steve Lyons, recomposing in 3D with a variety of materials (wood, cardboard, fabric, paper and adhesives) the image of an observatory perched on stilts along the shore of the Loch Ness lake, designed to catch every shot of the mythical monster.
Mierle Laderman Ukeles, a historic artist of American ecological art, presents Touch Sanitation for the first time in Paris, a pivotal work in her work and her reflection on the place of waste in our daily lives. We observe French artist Pauline Bastard‘s Beautiful Landscape, obtained from the cross-referencing of old schoolbook pages and photographs. We wonder at the Dieciseis/Sixteen video clip by American artists Los Super Elegantes, featuring the love story of a garbage collector and a young suburban girl.
Douglas White Black palm, 2010 Pneus usagés Courtesy l'artiste et la galerie Paradise Row, Londres Crédit photo : Laurent Lecat
British artist Douglas White ‘s formidable lush Black Palm reminds us of what might become of our oases in the event of sudden climate change. At first glance, it appears to be charred. Then, as you approach it, the sculpture made of old tires appears in all its splendor, like a symbol of the unbridled globalization that sees rubber produced in South America before being transformed into tires in China, before being mounted on trucks in the Middle East and exploding in the heat on a Saudi highway.
Eva Jospin-Thoretton Forêt, 2010 carton, 250 x 360 cm Courtesy l’artiste
Like an echo of the palm tree, French artist Eva Jospin-Thoretton ‘s Forest is a trompe-l’œil, an illusion of a forest made from discarded cardboard boxes. The artist has accumulated and sculpted them like a precious material, a rare wood. Her forests are made up of countless layers of basic brown cardboard, creating bas-reliefs.
Tue Greenfort 1 Kilo PET, 2007 bouteilles en plastique, 25 x 25 x 30 cm courtesy l’artiste et Galerie Johann Koenig, Berlin
The most eloquent work in this exhibition is undoubtedly the sculpture 1 Kilo, P.E.T by Canadian artist Tue Greenfort. A sort of giant agglomerate of waste, it shows us the ambiguity of ecologically correct transformation processes by revealing the paradox of ecological attitudes. This kilo of polyethylene terephthalate obtained by burning 17 kilos of plastic bottles reveals the refinement required to obtain this non-reducible plastic material. A transformation that requires a great deal of energy and water to meet recycling standards.
Marjan Teeuwen Verwoerst Huis 2, 2009 c-print sur dibon, 155 x 231,5 cm, Centre National des Arts Plastiques – Ministère de la culture et de la communication © DR / CNAP
Dutch artist Marjan Teeuwen compiles, stacks, classifies and hierarchizes by color to build a Verwoerst Huis 2 paper house like a compulsive object. A suffocating space, balanced on the verge of collapse, made of tons of paper, intended for photography, but from which emerges a certain rationality, an idea of solidity, all ambivalence.
In the basement, Metamorphosis is the key to rehabilitation. The result is a Chinese portrait, a cabinet of curiosities, a reconstruction and a deconstruction. These works write a contemporary archaeology by exploiting their basic materials until they undergo a complete metamorphosis. In addition to a new installation by Steve Lyons and the Pile erected on lit ceiling railings by French artist Romain Pellas, two works stand out from the crowd.
Lucie Chaumont Empreinte écologique, 2006-2010 plâtre, dimensions variables courtesy l’artiste et Galerie Eva Hober, Paris
French artist Lucie Chaumont highlights the lasting impact of consumption on the environment with her installation Empreinte Ecologique. Over a period of more than a year, the artist made plaster casts of hundreds of everyday product packaging items, from yoghurt pots to meat trays, and presents them to us as part of an archaeological excavation of everyday life.
Christian Gonzenbach Skins. A Hunter Collection, 2001-2010 techniques mixtes, dimensions variables Courtesy l'artiste et Galerie Magda Danysz, Paris
Swiss artist Christian Gonzenbach presents us with an interesting cabinet of curiosities in his Skins series, made up of « skins » of household appliances and consumer electronics, dismantled and displayed like masks of a new kind. These new trophies symbolize the obsolescence of high-tech, the tremendous acceleration in the consumption of goods and products designed to last, but having a much shorter existence because they are frequently renewed.
Finally, the second floor offers us a Glissade à travers la réhabilitation. The works on this floor offer controlled skids, balancing acts that defy collapse and achieve a quiet prowess. Furniture and building materials have lost their purpose and become almost unrecognizable. They have mutated into abstract sculptures, abandoning any reference to functional reality in favor of a new aesthetic reality.
Damien Berthier Arrangement, 2006 courtesy l’artiste et galerie Espace à Vendre, Nice
French artist Damien Berthet speaks to us of the multiplication of garbage through his Arrangement, an opportunistic sculpture between two trees forming a monochrome cameo of rubbish bags, or a video of an express, rational « tidying up » of household garbage on a Marseilles street corner. Many other works are on display, as the exhibition takes stock of an increasingly important social debate, but from a different perspective. Instead of being an exhibition space presenting ecological or « eco-friendly » solutions, or listing the disasters to come in this society of over-consumption, the exhibition REHAB, l’art de re-faire is intended more as a totally distanced exploration of the subject, at the risk of sometimes confusing the viewer. Nevertheless, by diverting these familiar objects, it certainly makes us question our way of life and our society of excessive consumerism.
REHAB, l’art de re-faire Espace Fondation EDF, 6 rue Récamier 75007 Paris
Free Entry
Marie-Odile Radom