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| Le Gentil Garçon |
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For L.F.D.A. 02.With spring well underway, Le Gentil Garçon offers us the chance to linger awhile in winter, extending an invitation to celebrate the Triumph of Snow with hundreds of openings cut into its sides in the form of ice crystals. Each cut-out shape is unique, just as in nature. Without the structure, the visitor discovers an igloo made from the crystals cut away from the outer surfaces. The exterior is presented as a carefully constructed, rigourously symmetrical architectural element, like a giant ice crystal, while inside, the snowflakes are interlocked, in an apparently chaotic, disordered way. From inside and outside the structure, our gaze infiltrates or is blocked by the interlocking voids and shapes. Radiant and translucent, the white colour of the sides of the two folding structures becomes the focus for a play of light and shadows, and at the centre of the igloo, viewers are greeted by a snowman made from the same interlocking snowflakes, armed with his traditional orange carrot – a fragile, absurd mirror of mankind striving to protect himself as best he can, from the ravages of wild nature. The Triumph of Snow is a temple to Mother Nature whose god is revealed – with a light, witty touch – as none other than the figure who haunts our child-like imaginations in the winter of each passing year. Le Gentil GarçonBehind their childlike appearances, from the viewpoint of the subjects as well as of their creation, Le Gentil Garçon sculptures and installations prove to be the result of ingenunity and the combination of scientific knowledge with developed techniques. Formerly impassioned by complex mathematics, the artist has chosen, if only by the nickname used as a pseudonym, to take a childlike and unsophisticated approach to art, navigating between the realms of ignorance and know-how while using the sciences to create spectacular works filled with humour, which endlessly leave an impression on the young and young at heart. [M. A.] Le Gentil Garçon was born on 1 November 1998 (through the intention of Julien Amouroux). |
