Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil
Topophilie des cendres
02 Jul - 26 Aug 2018
Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil, Catastrophe, 2017
Photo Marc Domage
Courtesy of the artists and Galerie Escougnou-Cetraro (Paris
Photo Marc Domage
Courtesy of the artists and Galerie Escougnou-Cetraro (Paris
PIA RONDÉ & FABIEN SALEIL
Topophilie des cendres
2 July – 26 August 2018
Curator : Daria de Beauvais
“We always begin with drawing or photography, our objective is to highlight images. [...] We create a mental landscape and set about placing it in space.” Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil
Palais de Tokyo is pleased to invite the duo of artists, Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil, for an original exhibition, presented in an ancient, 12th-century chapel.
Inspired by the figure of Empedocles, who perished on the rim of Etna, the exhibition « Topophile des cendres » [Topophily of Ashes] stages different forms of fire, evoking just as much purification as annihilation, or the instincts of life and death as convoked by Gaston Bachelard in his Psychanalysis of Fire. Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil are here continuing their work on the extension of the world of photography, towards a crossing with such techniques as drawing, engraving, sculpture and installation.
Their project at the Chapelle de la Madeleine, which is as physical as it is mental, can be travelled through like the intuitive environment of an upcoming narrative. The spatialization and fragmentation of images – charred forests, lava in fusion or mineral worlds – give rise to a “screaming landscape”, in the words of the artists. Work in a darkroom, hand-blown glass, or pencil-drawings are combined together, mingling the burning of images and the incandescence of matter.
The appearance – and disappearance – of images lies at the heart of the creation process of Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil. Their work is based on the observation of nature, and its confrontation with human, or even cultural occupations. The artists effect symbolic extractions from the living world, and mouldings of reality, before associating them with a constructive, mathematical rigour.
This characterises not just their photographic assemblies, but also their drawings or installations, where the mineral, vegetable and animal coexist within a landscape where geometric and architectural cut-ups are loaded with an organic power.
Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil
The works of Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil come to life, along a chain of successive creations, that drift from one to the other, through a renewed articulation between various media and materials. Starting out from a production ritual in a darkroom, their researches tend towards a spatialization of drawn or photographic images, while exploiting their plasticity. Their installations need to be approached both physically and mentally; they can be crossed through like narratives, bringing together the notions of memory, sacrifice or magic.
Pia Rondé was born in 1986 à Grasse, Fabien Saleil was born in 1983 à Ségur; they live and work in Noisy-le-Sec. Among their most recent exhibitions: “Cité Fantôme” (Drawing Lab, Paris, 2017), “La Campagne est Noire de soleil” (Galerie Escougnou-Cetraro Paris, 2016) or else “Plongement” (Espace Short, Nantes, 2015).
They have also taken part in such group shows as “Intériorités” (Labanque, Béthune, 2017, invited by Léa Bismuth), “Face à l’aura” (Centre d’art Image/ Imatge, Hortez, 2017) as well as Jeune Création in 2013 – among others. Their artist’s book Ruines du Soleil was acquired by the Bibliothèque Kandinsky (Centre Pompidou), the Frac Île-de-France and the Bibliothèque de L’Esadhar. Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil are represented by the Galerie Escougnou-Cetraro (Paris).
Topophilie des cendres
2 July – 26 August 2018
Curator : Daria de Beauvais
“We always begin with drawing or photography, our objective is to highlight images. [...] We create a mental landscape and set about placing it in space.” Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil
Palais de Tokyo is pleased to invite the duo of artists, Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil, for an original exhibition, presented in an ancient, 12th-century chapel.
Inspired by the figure of Empedocles, who perished on the rim of Etna, the exhibition « Topophile des cendres » [Topophily of Ashes] stages different forms of fire, evoking just as much purification as annihilation, or the instincts of life and death as convoked by Gaston Bachelard in his Psychanalysis of Fire. Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil are here continuing their work on the extension of the world of photography, towards a crossing with such techniques as drawing, engraving, sculpture and installation.
Their project at the Chapelle de la Madeleine, which is as physical as it is mental, can be travelled through like the intuitive environment of an upcoming narrative. The spatialization and fragmentation of images – charred forests, lava in fusion or mineral worlds – give rise to a “screaming landscape”, in the words of the artists. Work in a darkroom, hand-blown glass, or pencil-drawings are combined together, mingling the burning of images and the incandescence of matter.
The appearance – and disappearance – of images lies at the heart of the creation process of Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil. Their work is based on the observation of nature, and its confrontation with human, or even cultural occupations. The artists effect symbolic extractions from the living world, and mouldings of reality, before associating them with a constructive, mathematical rigour.
This characterises not just their photographic assemblies, but also their drawings or installations, where the mineral, vegetable and animal coexist within a landscape where geometric and architectural cut-ups are loaded with an organic power.
Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil
The works of Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil come to life, along a chain of successive creations, that drift from one to the other, through a renewed articulation between various media and materials. Starting out from a production ritual in a darkroom, their researches tend towards a spatialization of drawn or photographic images, while exploiting their plasticity. Their installations need to be approached both physically and mentally; they can be crossed through like narratives, bringing together the notions of memory, sacrifice or magic.
Pia Rondé was born in 1986 à Grasse, Fabien Saleil was born in 1983 à Ségur; they live and work in Noisy-le-Sec. Among their most recent exhibitions: “Cité Fantôme” (Drawing Lab, Paris, 2017), “La Campagne est Noire de soleil” (Galerie Escougnou-Cetraro Paris, 2016) or else “Plongement” (Espace Short, Nantes, 2015).
They have also taken part in such group shows as “Intériorités” (Labanque, Béthune, 2017, invited by Léa Bismuth), “Face à l’aura” (Centre d’art Image/ Imatge, Hortez, 2017) as well as Jeune Création in 2013 – among others. Their artist’s book Ruines du Soleil was acquired by the Bibliothèque Kandinsky (Centre Pompidou), the Frac Île-de-France and the Bibliothèque de L’Esadhar. Pia Rondé & Fabien Saleil are represented by the Galerie Escougnou-Cetraro (Paris).