Yo-Yo Gonthier
03 Jul - 26 Aug 2012
YO-YO GONTHIER
L'invisible
3 July - 26 August 2012
The installation L’invisible presents an artistic human experience, shared by Yo-Yo Gonthier with the pupils of the Collège Saint-Exupéry de Rosny-sous-Bois during the artist’s in-situ residency between 2008 and 2010 in the Sena Saint-Denis region. The aim of the project was to create and construct a flying machine with the pupils; in the end the dirigible actually flew, but an interesting individual and group experience was also enjoyed. That is why the participants decided to call the dirigible "The invisible", in reference to the impression it left on them all.
Yo-Yo Gonthier’s presentation is being shown concurrently in two venues: the Abstract Cabinet at Sala Rekalde exhibits the documentary archive that accompanied the kids throughout the project, the photographs that track the journey that led to the flying of the dirigible and the experimental film L'envol (The take off). And in the hall of the French Institute (Campo Volantín, 23) the film L’invisible is projected in a loop; this experiment in sound and vision situates us within viewpoint of the air balloon just as it rises into the air.
Art at school
From his workshop located on the first floor of the Collège Saint-Exupéry de Rosny-sous-Bois, Yo-Yo Gonthier brought paper aeroplanes, drawings and illustrations of flying machines, balloons and dirigibles into the daily routine of the centre. He suggested to the high-school students that they share in his fascination with the great explorers of the air and engage in a project that lasted some months and, above all, stimulated the imagination.
In the first encounters, contact was made with the subject in hand through visits to museums, by watching films and consulting documents. A call was then made inviting the whole centre to organise the launching of paper aeroplanes at playtime. More than 500 planes flew in the playground that day.
The following action was to launch balloons from the playground. Each balloon carried a message. The students were surprised by the results: weeks afterwards replies came in from all over the place. The balloons really had travelled very far.
The experience continued with a workshop devoted to printing flying machines and concluded with the building of two dirigibles, L’invisible and Le poisson lune, which the kids finally got to take off one afternoon in the playground.
The opposite of technological progress
The conception of the flying machines proved to be very fruitful from an educational point of view, because it set into play both the history of science and the world of fantastic stories. It also made it possible to approach multiple facets of artistic creation (drawing, engraving, writing, modelling and construction of the object). Yo-Yo Gonthier’s purpose, however, transcended educational objectives. The artist explains his interest in explorers who preceded the invention of aviation, conceived as a gaze looking back one hundred years in time, before the beginning of the technological race that our society is still grounded in. His proposal is to take a step backwards, placing ourselves at a point before the technical conquest of the air so as to let our imagination express itself freely. At the same time he poses an exercise of distancing both from the path that brought us to the present day, and from our dependence on technology. In the proposition the discourses of nostalgia and criticism stand side by side.
Visual and sound experimentation
Yo-Yo Gonthier’s personal work at the Saint-Exupéry High School was nourished by the experience shared with the children, who became the main actors in the experimental documentary that Yo-Yo entitled L'envol (The take off). The kids were portrayed close up by the photographer during the different stages of the experiment. In the work that resulted what can be seen is a transformation, growth. The artist led these young people onto the terrain of creation, where they discovered their potential and were able to sense their own "take off".
The narrative is constructed with black and white photographs that gradually follow one another, leaving the spectator time to venture into the tale offered by each child. The sound track was created by Corsin Vogel, lending rhythm to the film and incorporating testimony from its protagonists.
The flying of the air balloons in the high school playground also provided inspiration for the 5'52'' video The invisible, for which Corsin Vogel created the live sound. This time, the artist situates us within viewpoint of the air balloon just as it rises into the air and leaves the ground.
THE ARTIST www.yoyogonthier.com
Yo-Yo Gonthier (Niamey, Niger, 1974) lives in Paris and works as a visual artist. In his first nocturnal pieces, which he collected in the book Les lanternes sourdes (Deaf lanterns) (Trans Photographic Press, 2003), Yo-Yo Gonthier sought the touch of wonder that stems from a particular interpretation of the night and of chiaroscuro. The time exposure contained by the images he creates is long enough for artificial light and ambient light, stability and movement to coexist, while leaving space for our imagination. The artist wishes to cultivate contemplation, a marginal practice in a society racing headlong on a road to nowhere; the idea is to combat speed and oblivion.
His interest in the hidden history of the French colonial empire inspired his show entitled Outre-mer (Overseas), in the Khiasma Space (Lilas, France) in 2008, where the traces that remain in places and buildings provide evidence of the individual and collective memory.
His bond with the African continent led him on two occasions to take part in the African Photography Biennial, Bamako Encounters, in Mali, in 2005 and 2009. In 2009, he received a commission from the Parc de La Villette in Paris to make a documentary on the Creole world of the Islands of Reunion and Mauritius, for the Kreyol Factory Exhibition. In 2010, he was also invited to coordinate a project in which he combined photography and sound creation for the first edition of the international photography festival, Addis Foto Fest, in Ethiopia.
Aware of the need for cultural transmission and exchange, he usually works within the educational sphere. In addition, he frequently intervenes in the Fine Arts Faculty of Reunion Island, and will be active until June 2013 as a resident artist in the town of Saint-Denis, close to Paris.
He is currently participating in the Triennial Intense proximité (Intense proximity) with a series called Petite zone peu sûre (Small not too safe area), showing in the art centre Bétonsalon in Paris.
L'invisible
3 July - 26 August 2012
The installation L’invisible presents an artistic human experience, shared by Yo-Yo Gonthier with the pupils of the Collège Saint-Exupéry de Rosny-sous-Bois during the artist’s in-situ residency between 2008 and 2010 in the Sena Saint-Denis region. The aim of the project was to create and construct a flying machine with the pupils; in the end the dirigible actually flew, but an interesting individual and group experience was also enjoyed. That is why the participants decided to call the dirigible "The invisible", in reference to the impression it left on them all.
Yo-Yo Gonthier’s presentation is being shown concurrently in two venues: the Abstract Cabinet at Sala Rekalde exhibits the documentary archive that accompanied the kids throughout the project, the photographs that track the journey that led to the flying of the dirigible and the experimental film L'envol (The take off). And in the hall of the French Institute (Campo Volantín, 23) the film L’invisible is projected in a loop; this experiment in sound and vision situates us within viewpoint of the air balloon just as it rises into the air.
Art at school
From his workshop located on the first floor of the Collège Saint-Exupéry de Rosny-sous-Bois, Yo-Yo Gonthier brought paper aeroplanes, drawings and illustrations of flying machines, balloons and dirigibles into the daily routine of the centre. He suggested to the high-school students that they share in his fascination with the great explorers of the air and engage in a project that lasted some months and, above all, stimulated the imagination.
In the first encounters, contact was made with the subject in hand through visits to museums, by watching films and consulting documents. A call was then made inviting the whole centre to organise the launching of paper aeroplanes at playtime. More than 500 planes flew in the playground that day.
The following action was to launch balloons from the playground. Each balloon carried a message. The students were surprised by the results: weeks afterwards replies came in from all over the place. The balloons really had travelled very far.
The experience continued with a workshop devoted to printing flying machines and concluded with the building of two dirigibles, L’invisible and Le poisson lune, which the kids finally got to take off one afternoon in the playground.
The opposite of technological progress
The conception of the flying machines proved to be very fruitful from an educational point of view, because it set into play both the history of science and the world of fantastic stories. It also made it possible to approach multiple facets of artistic creation (drawing, engraving, writing, modelling and construction of the object). Yo-Yo Gonthier’s purpose, however, transcended educational objectives. The artist explains his interest in explorers who preceded the invention of aviation, conceived as a gaze looking back one hundred years in time, before the beginning of the technological race that our society is still grounded in. His proposal is to take a step backwards, placing ourselves at a point before the technical conquest of the air so as to let our imagination express itself freely. At the same time he poses an exercise of distancing both from the path that brought us to the present day, and from our dependence on technology. In the proposition the discourses of nostalgia and criticism stand side by side.
Visual and sound experimentation
Yo-Yo Gonthier’s personal work at the Saint-Exupéry High School was nourished by the experience shared with the children, who became the main actors in the experimental documentary that Yo-Yo entitled L'envol (The take off). The kids were portrayed close up by the photographer during the different stages of the experiment. In the work that resulted what can be seen is a transformation, growth. The artist led these young people onto the terrain of creation, where they discovered their potential and were able to sense their own "take off".
The narrative is constructed with black and white photographs that gradually follow one another, leaving the spectator time to venture into the tale offered by each child. The sound track was created by Corsin Vogel, lending rhythm to the film and incorporating testimony from its protagonists.
The flying of the air balloons in the high school playground also provided inspiration for the 5'52'' video The invisible, for which Corsin Vogel created the live sound. This time, the artist situates us within viewpoint of the air balloon just as it rises into the air and leaves the ground.
THE ARTIST www.yoyogonthier.com
Yo-Yo Gonthier (Niamey, Niger, 1974) lives in Paris and works as a visual artist. In his first nocturnal pieces, which he collected in the book Les lanternes sourdes (Deaf lanterns) (Trans Photographic Press, 2003), Yo-Yo Gonthier sought the touch of wonder that stems from a particular interpretation of the night and of chiaroscuro. The time exposure contained by the images he creates is long enough for artificial light and ambient light, stability and movement to coexist, while leaving space for our imagination. The artist wishes to cultivate contemplation, a marginal practice in a society racing headlong on a road to nowhere; the idea is to combat speed and oblivion.
His interest in the hidden history of the French colonial empire inspired his show entitled Outre-mer (Overseas), in the Khiasma Space (Lilas, France) in 2008, where the traces that remain in places and buildings provide evidence of the individual and collective memory.
His bond with the African continent led him on two occasions to take part in the African Photography Biennial, Bamako Encounters, in Mali, in 2005 and 2009. In 2009, he received a commission from the Parc de La Villette in Paris to make a documentary on the Creole world of the Islands of Reunion and Mauritius, for the Kreyol Factory Exhibition. In 2010, he was also invited to coordinate a project in which he combined photography and sound creation for the first edition of the international photography festival, Addis Foto Fest, in Ethiopia.
Aware of the need for cultural transmission and exchange, he usually works within the educational sphere. In addition, he frequently intervenes in the Fine Arts Faculty of Reunion Island, and will be active until June 2013 as a resident artist in the town of Saint-Denis, close to Paris.
He is currently participating in the Triennial Intense proximité (Intense proximity) with a series called Petite zone peu sûre (Small not too safe area), showing in the art centre Bétonsalon in Paris.