Thursday, June 21, 2012

When the mermaids are silent

Silent Mermaids for Fish Funerals
The Diamond Meteorite
The Lighthouse
Café Caramel
Migratory Elephant
Bird on Board
A 320
 Vomit Bag

For the first time of my french life I've been to the South West of the hexagon for a medical convention. How beautiful and insipiring the landscapes of Biarritz are ! When I arrived at the beach on the morning I was alone in front of an apocalyptic skyline traversed by prehistoric meteorites. I was reading Quand les sirènes se taisent written by Maxence Van Der Meersch with a dead fish when I realized the described strike was boring compare to what I had before my eyes so I started drawing. 

More drawings here > DRAWING<

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

The Creative Act

Esmeralda Da Costa left a text written by Marcel Duchamp in my kitchen two weeks ago. Since then this cute little book gave me the eye. Today was the day to read it and share it to the world. Everyone who has even a little interest in art should be aware of the concepts he develops such as the art coefficient and the mediumistic being... Enjoy !

  "Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of the creation of art: the artist on one hand, and on the other the spectator who later becomes the posterity.
            To all appearances, the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing.
If we give the attributes of a medium to artist, we must then deny him the state of consciouscness on the esthetic plane about what he is doing or why he is doing it. All his decisions in the artistic excecution of the work rest with pure intuition and cannot be translated into a self-analysis, spoken or written, or even thought out.
           T.S Eliot, in his essay on Tradition and individual talent, writes "The more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates; the more perfectly will the mind digest and translate the passions which are its material".
           Millions of artists create; only a few thousands are discussed or accepted by the spectator and many less again are consecrated by posterity.
           In the last analysis, the artist may shout from all the rooftops that he is a genius; he will have to wait for the verdict of the spectator in order that his declarations take a social value and that, finally, posterity includes him in the primers of Art History.
I know that this statement will not meet with the approval of many artists who refuse this mediumistic role and insist on the validity of their awareness in the creative act - yet art history has consisently decided upon the virtues of a work of art through considerations completely divorced from the rationalized explanations of the artist.
           If the artist, as a human being, full of the best intentions toward himself and the whole world, plays no role at all in the judgement of his own work, how can one describe the phenomenon which prompts the spectator to react critically to the work of art ? In other words how does this reaction come about ?
           This phenomenon is comparable to a transference from the artist to the spectator in the form of an esthetic osmosis taking place through the inert matter, such as pigment, piano or marble.
But before we go further, I want to clarify our understanding of the word "art" - to be sure, without an attempt to a definition.
           What I have in mind is that art may be bad, good or indifferent, but, whatever adjective is used, we must call it art, and bad art is still art in the same way as a bad emotion is still an emotion...
           Therefore, when I refer to "art coefficient", it will be understood that I refer not only to great art, but I am trying to describe the subjective mechanism which produces art in a raw state - à l'état brut - bad, good or indifferent.
           In the creative act, the artist goes from intention to realization through a chain of totally subjective reactions. His struggle toward the realization is a series of efforts, pains, satisfactions, refusals, decisions, which also cannot and must not be fully self-conscious, at least on the esthetic plane.
The result of this struggle is a difference between the intention and its realization, a difference which the artist is not aware of.
Consequentely, in the chain of reactions accompanying the creative art, a link is missing. This gap which represents the inability of the artist to express fully his intention; this difference between what he intended to realize and did realize, is the personal "art coefficient" contained in the work.
In other words, the personal "art coefficient" is like an arithmetical relation between the unexpressed but intended and the unintentionally expressed.
           To avoid a misunderstanding, we must remember that this "art coefficent" is a personal expression of art "à l'état brut", that is still in a raw state, which must be "refined" as pure sugar from molasses, by the spectator; the digit of this coefficient has no bearing whatsoever on this verdict. The creative act takes another aspect when the spectator experiences the phenomenon of transmutation; through the change from inert matter into a work of art, an actual transubstantiation has taken place, and the role of the spectator is to determine the weight of the work on the esthetic scale.
All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. This becomes even more obvious when posterity gives its final verdict and sometimes rehabilitates forgotten artists."

Marcel Duchamp (1957); Art News, volume 56 n°4

Monday, June 11, 2012

Coral Sun

Coral Sun 


This video shows the search of the Moroccan Coral Sun and its golden rays along the valleys of the Atlas Mountains and the Altlantic coast. The music I chose is, unsuprisingly, the psychedelic and throbbing "Sun" of the canadian dj Caribou.

More Morocco:

Thursday, June 7, 2012

PAN !


The exhibition poster is a photograph taken by Diane Audema.

      If I have one regret in my life is that of having to abandon my art school to get into journalism after ma first diploma. I feel I have missed a turn with my ford Eleanor and I ended up with a lame pumpkin. But fortunately some young artists have more faith and they will all exhibit at La Galerie de La Marine and if you're around you have to get there !
During the opening an artist will receive the Award of Young Artists of the City of Nice supported by the foundation Bernar Venet.

Overview of the winner of Young Artists Award 2010 my friend Eun Young Lee :




Nice - june 29th to september 30th

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

I K E A

A relaxing sunday evening in the Hamptons
Rainy day in Berlin
Summer holydays in Croatia
Late evening cooking
Single bathroom in a colocation in New-York
Enjoyable dinner in Barcelona
The room of Mirrors in Versailles
 A rest after a stroll at the beach in Brighton
 Standard evening in Chicago
 Hypnotizing TV in Tokyo
Imitating birds in Kiev
Preparing a barbecue in Biarritz

 A night in Roma
 Teenagers in Paris
"For artists with big ambitions"

I never refuse an invitation to IKEA. To me it is like walking through an amusement park ! A path is drawn to guide the crowd,pregnant women are the most represented segment of the population and young couples picture themselves in their future living room. 
How did this happen ? 
How did a brand succeeded in selling standardized lives ? IKEA, this big capitalistic multinational really seems to share some communist features such as the same sofa for everyone...Which student didn't have the Klippan sofa at one hundred euros ?  I never thought of furniture as a medium itslef that conveys its own ideology and language Jag talar svenska nu
Like little theater scenes the furniture is arranged so that, in turn, people can project themselves. We had a lot of fun imitating people's behaviors around the showrooms.