Showing posts with label Bestiary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bestiary. Show all posts

26.4.12

Bestiary(4) L'étrange et le merveilleux de Denis Polge












Série Animals







Série Fetish


S’il est au sens classique du terme un sculpteur animalier – allant jusqu’à fondre dans le bronze comme Barye, Pompon ou Flanagan taupe et mulot -, quand le plus gros du bestiaire fait l’éloge de la collecte des matériaux et du bricolage, il ne peint qu’en de rares occasions des animaux à plume sauf quand il chasse sur les terres des Primitifs italiens. De cet amour, il dit : Vivent les animaux à poils, à panaches (sauf les autruches)! Tout ce qui a du pelage et de la moire de plume. Tout ce qui appelle à être touché du regard, c'est-à-dire non touché. Tout ce qui procure une jouissance ou sa frustration, sa retenue… du pubis et de la couleur.


Il ajoute : Oui il y a du plaisir en même temps que de la frustration... Mais c'est très bien comme ça. La frustration c'est ce qui permet de renouveler le plaisir. Et ce qui le préserve d'être consommé; ou ce qui lui permet d'être consommé à nouveau sans en être jamais rassasié... 
Il déclare aimer : Les oiseaux aux pieds de Saint-François, les pigeons et les coqs qui sont plus merveilleux que les paons. Les chèvres de Giotto. Mais j’aime aussi les papiers de bonbons, les scories des trottoirs (Paris est plein de pétales entre les coulures de pisse). Et les fleurs de courge*.
*Ecrits de Denis Polge, Lagnes, octobre 2010, correspondance avec l’auteur. 
Xavier Girard, Fragments de paradis. Extrait.


Animal Fétiche

Il les appelle ses petits objets votifs, ses attrape-cauchemars. De quels fantasmes sont-ils les leurres? De quel fonds sont-ils l'inventaire? De quelles scories et reliquats de l'âme sont-ils la conjuration? Entre jouissance et frustration, ils se tiennent sur le territoire hésitant de la psyché enfantine mêlant innocence et culpabilité. Qu'ils disent le malaise de pulsions primitives, qu'ils soient les vestiges de petits meurtres ou de petites prières instantes, ils interrogent l'essence même de notre civilisation*. J'éprouve un frisson de curiosité à l'idée de peut-être un jour pousser la porte de cet atelier. 








Denis Polge, Fragments de paradis,  texte de Xavier Girard. La Pionnière, 2010
Denis Polge, Autres Rives,  textes de Xavier Girard et Henry Mathieu. Le Promeneur,Gallimard, 2009
Denis Polge, Les Eaux Dormantes,  textes de Patrick Mauriès, François-Xavier Lalanne, Richard Stamelman, Henry Mathieu. Le Promeneur, Gallimard 2007





Denis Polge est un des artistes de la Galerie F. de Nobele, 2 rue  de Bourbon Le Château , Paris VI




*Freud,  Malaise dans la civilisation, 1930


13.4.12

Bestiary and Trinkets. Jessica Barensfeld's World of Adornment


















Jessica Barensfeld is a jewelry designer, together with photographer Simon Howell they have created their own nest and stylelife  in Williamsburg Brooklyn. Simon being an Englishman from Yorkshire and Jessica  being born in Manhattan, they have somehow brought old York and new York a little  closer. Jessica decided to leave her job to dedicate herself to her passions, knitting, creating jewelry and surfing. They come up with new projects all the time. They have just started an online shop selling  wooly hats, lovingly hand knit either by Mama Simon in Yorkshire or by Jessica herself. "Keep it simple" could be their motto. "Sometimes, it can feel like a waste of time and it is not easy. It can be very tense and difficult. I was having a much more stable life with my full time position, but the rewards I get now are so much greater. Yes, I do have money freak outs, but we make it happen, which is the amazing thing about being with Simon. Every month somehow we do make it happen." Interview from Freunde von FreundenThey enjoy timelessness in company of their two black cats and a barrowed dog. I enjoyed her diary blog so much, click here to enter her world of bears, Bears in a field




6.4.12

Bestiary (3) Anna-Wili Highfield's Faux Taxidermy

















All photographies by Anna-Wili Highfield.
1 Horse mask for Hermès, 2011, 100 x 110 x 100 cm. Cotton paper, ink, cotton thread, silk, copper pipe internals with hard hat.
2 Seahorse 2011,
35cm x 15cm x 7cm. Ink, watercolour, archival cotton paper, copper rod, timber block.
3 Dancing horse,
2010,1.8 x 1.8m x 55cm. Copper pipe, masking tape, copper wire.
4 Pegasus for Hermès,2011& Pegasus bust for Hermès, 2011.
5 Robin 2010, 13cmx 14cm x 7cm. Ink, water colour, archival cotton paper, cotton thread, brass rod, timber block.
6 Australian magpie 2010, 32cm x 40cm x 17cm. 
Ink, shellac, archival cotton paper, cotton thread, brass rod, timber block.



One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret,
Never to be told,
Eight for a wish,
Nine for a kiss
Ten for a bird
You must not miss.


"One for Sorrow" is a traditional children's nursery rhyme about magpies. According to an old superstition, the number of magpies one sees determines if one will have bad luck or not. 


Anna-Wili Highfield is an Australian artist based in Sydney. She sculpts faux taxidermy and fake animal trophies in paper and copper wire. She was commissioned by Hermès for the opening of a new store  in  Brisbane. She created pieces  for  Anthropologie, New-York as well. 
"I like natural materials. I like materials that have a resistance to them. I like them to dictate the form and the next step to an extent. I am very much a process based artist. I would very seldom do a drawing first, because I think that my best ideas come within the process of making something.
I don’t cover my way. All the materials are there to see.  I think that there is more mystery when you can see how something was made rather than a sleek hidden job."
To know more about Anna-Wili Highfield's work, here is an interview from The Design Files.









2.4.12

Bestiary (2) Dietlind Wolf's Ceramics and Workshop





















All photographies, copyright Dietlind Wolf


Dietlind Wolf is a visual designer and propstylist  from Hamburg.  She created Flow 1 Ltd to sell  her unique pieces and photos.  She feels deeply connected to  her favorite materials, porcelain , ceramics  paper and metal.  I love the  everchanging views of her workshop. 






6.3.12

Bestiary (1) Benedetta Mori Ubaldini's Bestiary






 Wolves and Red hood


Babies and rats

Wolf and white rabbits


Sculptor Benedetta Mori Ubaldini explains that she feels a childlike impulse to create  chicken-wire  three-dimensional installations. She likes the contradiction between the simplicity of the material and its magical power of transparency. "It gives my creations the lightness of an apparition, a ghostlike quality like a trace from memory," she says. What memory is she working on when she connects us to these immaterial animals and bodies?