The gaze is predatory, it misrepresents; it deceives.

Things lend themselves to the gaze while remaining that which they present themselves as.

The pertinence of art lies not in how a thing conforms to the gaze but in the resolution of the contradictions and confusions which the gaze generates.


I am a sculptor. I create devices to bring about this sort of reconciliation.

I combine powdery materials such as polystyrene, sand, mica with paradoxical precision. I play games with notions of scale, mass and origins. I refer to abstract figures and summon forth fabulous beings. These beings break through the raw whiteness of the walls and hold themselves in, quite still. Their names, - often compound names- which enable designation, are borrowed from various mythologies and from the most common language of today. Those with animal forms are mostly devoid of orifices or external organs. Their bodies often have only one limb.. As performers, their postures show evidence of various afflictions. Other pieces might include one or several stones or fragments of organic matter.

vincentbeaurin.com

Pard

polystyrène, sable de quartz

110 x 80 x 42 cm

2007

Collection privée

I physically experience the world as being entirely made of powdery substances. When I open my eyes, I see a carpet of superimposed images, which merge and flatten out. Sometimes, the images suddenly move out of line, provoking this flat screen to rupture. I can then catch a glimpse of what is behind. It’s black, not in the sense of the hue which may colour an object, but more the black of a pit with no light, of the void. If the works I produce have analogies with this darkness, it is as much through the porosity of the material and the absence of reflection as through the colour. A work might for example sparkle with the flakes of mica that cover it, and thus might approach images, without the permeability of the surface being altered or its relation to the abyss being ruptured.

These works attract as the void attracts. They disturb any sense of equilibrium with the suddenness of accident and absorb the din around them through capillary action. They can be unsettling. Yet they are calming. The sites reverberate with the electric hum from the neon lighting.

Vincent Beaurin, July 2007.


Text accompanying the exhibition Basilic,

gallery Frédéric Giroux, Paris,

8 September / November 2007.

English version

of the text accompanying the exhibition Basilic,

Gallery Frédéric Giroux, Paris,

8 September / November 2007.