Michel François
17 Apr - 30 May 2015
MICHEL FRANÇOIS
A Frozen Eagle Melting on the Theatre of Operations
17 April - 30 May 2015
“Michel François’ shift has been, and continues expansively to be, towards the formless, the intangible, the shifting, the rhizomatic, the matrix, the organic.” (Martin Herbert)
Such is Michel François’ practice: ever-changing, unpredictable and malleable, exactly like the materials he favours. Over the years, the Belgian sculptor has ‘touched’ everything: plaster, concrete, metals, ice, clay, wood, neon, glass, rubber, magnets, stone, plants, soap, sand, plastic, polystyrene, glass, sponges, wax, ink, insects... Recently it has been asphalt – such a loaded, loathed and yet such a compliant ‘matière-première’, that François lays down like giant carpets, incrusted with objects, or sculpted in geometric shapes.
For his second exhibition at Thomas Dane Gallery, François will create a whole new environment. The set for a drama about to happen, or which maybe, has just occurred - a field of ruins where broken asphalt columns coexist with collapsed wall fragments and disintegrating bricks, and where the lights will flicker or overwhelm.
François is fond of these contrasts: black and white; noble and mundane; dark and bright; severe and carefree; and above all, a sense of absurd, surreal melancholy - as in “the happiness of being sad”.
François’ sculptures and installations constantly challenge themselves, break apart and find their balance again. They colonise, spread and pile-up. Materials and things become in his hands both antagonists and lovers, contaminating each other and reappearing, years apart.
A Frozen Eagle Melting on the Theatre of Operations
17 April - 30 May 2015
“Michel François’ shift has been, and continues expansively to be, towards the formless, the intangible, the shifting, the rhizomatic, the matrix, the organic.” (Martin Herbert)
Such is Michel François’ practice: ever-changing, unpredictable and malleable, exactly like the materials he favours. Over the years, the Belgian sculptor has ‘touched’ everything: plaster, concrete, metals, ice, clay, wood, neon, glass, rubber, magnets, stone, plants, soap, sand, plastic, polystyrene, glass, sponges, wax, ink, insects... Recently it has been asphalt – such a loaded, loathed and yet such a compliant ‘matière-première’, that François lays down like giant carpets, incrusted with objects, or sculpted in geometric shapes.
For his second exhibition at Thomas Dane Gallery, François will create a whole new environment. The set for a drama about to happen, or which maybe, has just occurred - a field of ruins where broken asphalt columns coexist with collapsed wall fragments and disintegrating bricks, and where the lights will flicker or overwhelm.
François is fond of these contrasts: black and white; noble and mundane; dark and bright; severe and carefree; and above all, a sense of absurd, surreal melancholy - as in “the happiness of being sad”.
François’ sculptures and installations constantly challenge themselves, break apart and find their balance again. They colonise, spread and pile-up. Materials and things become in his hands both antagonists and lovers, contaminating each other and reappearing, years apart.