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| Gilles Barbier |
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For L.F.D.A. 02.Gilles Barbier often uses language as a metaphor in his work. Drawings, gouaches, paintings, sculptures and other objects constitute a fascinating hypertextual ensemble emitting a rich, diverse array of signs. For La Force de l’Art 02, the artist has created a monumental “Tourniquet”, a structure that functions as a support for a series of works on paper, and as a mobile sculpture in its own right – a sort of aerator or giant “blender” for the exhibition space at the Grand Palais. Each of the Tourniquet’s eight picture rails supports a different polyptych consisting of six black gouaches. The polyptychs echo each other, in pendant pairs: “language” on one side, “images” on the other. The works are comparable to the pages of a comic book, turning on a central axis. The two halves of each “couple” are reflected in each other’s glass-and-wood frames, so that the motifs on each “page” of the artwook/book become superimposed and intermingled. The content of the images making up each polyptych is extremely varied. They include: the molecule of a “phrase” dividing itself into a multitude of ribbons legible on both sides ; a cross-section through the Terrier (“Burrow”), an existing sculptural project by Barbier ; a library of comic books ; house-dust mites seen under a microscope ; and talking “worms” (comic-book speech bubbles) attached to fish hooks hanging from the ends of fishing lines. Saturated with sophisticated, often completely unrelated symbols, torn out of the flux of the network or created in the artists studio, these moving images aim to shatter the linearity of traditional narrative, presenting visitors with a modular reading (both visual and physical) of space and time. [V. Th.] Gilles BarbierGilles Barbier’s work is constructed around a multitude of varied media. Sculptures in organic or artificial materials, gouaches, drawings, images found on the Internet, texts, models, etc., constitute a heterogeneous but coherent artistic language. Impassioned by notions of repetition and difference, in 1992 the artist launched himself into an extensive project consisting of copying entries of the French illustrated dictionary Petit Larousse (1966 edition); in transposing them onto large sheets of paper he makes his own game of snakes and ladders. This diverging structure inspired him to produce the series of Clones (1995-2008), his multiples in wax, and would lead to the Mega Maquette I and II project (1998-2008). [V. Th.] Gilles Barbier was born in 1965 in Vanuatu (South Pacific).
 Gilles Barbier |
