Superman, Batman & Co... mics! - Rental file
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Superman, Batman & Co... mics! Rental file
TABLE OF CONTENTS 01 Global concept and spatial arrangement 02 Artists 02 Series 1 - Gilles Barbier’s paintings 03 Series 2 - Mathias Schmied’s cuttings 04 Series 3 - Adrian Tranquilli’s sculptures 04 Series 4 - Audrey Piguet’s photographs 06 Series 5 - Alexandre Nicolas’ inclusions 07 Technical sheet 07 Exhibition material 07 Costs 08 Pictures 12 Mix of press samples 14 Contacts
GLOBAL CONCEPT
AND SPATIAL ARRANGEMENT
“No summer goes by without a blockbuster on superheroes nor a week without
a broadcast on their adventures” (in: Jean-Marc Lainé, Super-héros! La Puis-
sance des masques, 2011). Coming from the comic books’ imagination, these
stylish characters have seized our cinemas, our televisions, our newspapers
and our toys stores. However, if they are so present in our everyday life, it is
because they seem to speak to – and about – our human nature.
It is for exploring this phenomenon that Maison d’Ailleurs decided to
pay tribute to those mythical heroes with an original perspective – the one of
contemporary art. The exhibition “Superman, Batman & co … mics!” features
the artworks of five European artists working on five classical artistic tech-
niques (sculpture, painting, composition, inclusion, photography) in a project
that reveal the symbolism of superheroes. In a world tortures by foreseen ob-
solescence, identity troubles, difficulties to find our own place and an ever ris-
ing feeling of insecurity, the superhero seems to be our most-accurate mirror:
far from the superhuman gifted with infinite powers he used to be, he shows
more and more his uncertainties and his weaknesses.
The five artists of the exhibition look into our intimacies, sometimes
gained by disarray, and invite us to understand that these superheroes are in
fact the distorted images of our individualities. We are, in a certain sense, su-
perheroes.
Five Artworks series:
1. Gilles Barbier’s paintings
2. Mathias Schmied’s cuttings
3. Adrian Tranquilli’s sculptures
4. Audrey Piguet’s photographs
5. Alexandre Nicolas’ inclusions
01
ARTISTS
Series 1 –
Gilles Barbier’s paintings
Trained at the Marseille-Luminy Art School and co-founder of the Astéride
Association, Gilles Barbier (1965) is a French artist whose favourite modes of
expression are sculptures, drawings, installations and words.
In the seven paintings, which constitute the series presented in this
exhibition, the superheroes are usually reduced to a simple concept (“The
Obese”, “The Emmentalist”, “The Fog”). It is clear that Gilles Barbier is seeking
to show how much some of our everyday notions are “superhero-ised” but
also, more generally, how the codes with which the superheroes are presented
to us echo with the History of Art.
Example – The Obese
Obesity – a depreciated social attribute – is depicted here as a superpower :
the guy is telling us “I’m gonna feed you, boy”, armed with his ham. The Obese
appears then as un product created by our consumer society, whose excesses
we are enduring reflect themselves on the body of this character.
The Obese
posca® and acrylic on polyester layer
224 x 110.4 cm
Private collection
Courtesy Galerie Georges-Philippe
& Nathalie Vallois
© Gilles Barbier, 2012
02
Series 2 –
Mathias Schmied’s cuttings
Mathias Schmied (1976) is a French-Swiss artist who graduated from the Fine-
Arts School of Lyon and some of whose artworks now belong to the perma-
nent collections of the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York) and to the
Fonds National d’Art Contemporain (Paris).
Mathias Schmied’s work is the result of a very subtle scalpel interven-
tion on basic materials – such as comic books – which are to be considered
as the elementary blocks from which he materializes his thoughts. Absents or
omnipresents from Mathias’ cuttings, superheroes are enhanced, freed from
the pages or, on the contrary, stucked in their strips. Mathias Schmied destroys
with the help of his scalpel, but for the purpose of rebuilding better.
Example – FWWITT
Spider-Man – the main superheroes in the work of Mathias Schmied – is here
surrounded by a real web woven by the comic books’ strips. Thus, he seems to
be the prisoner of the narrative plot of his own stories.
FWWITT
Cut-up comics
27.5 x 35.5 cm
Courtesy Galerie Houg
© Mathias Schmied, 2012
03
Series 3 –
Adrian Tranquilli’s sculptures
Born in Melbourne and trained in anthropology, Adrian Tranquilli (1966) lives
and works in Rome. His career has been punctuated by many exhibitions: at
the Contemporary Art Museum in Rome, at La Maison Rouge in Paris, at the
Kunsthalle in Vienna and at the Dalí Museum in Florida.
With the help of his four sculptures – one of which, “After the West”,
was produced particularly for the Maison d’Ailleurs –, the artist finds a way to
reflect, through the superheroes shapes, upon our human condition and upon
Art. Adrian’s heroes are presented in their most fragile aspect, revealing their
hidden pains and their vulnerability.
Example – This is not a Love Song 1
This Superman, crucified like Jesus Christ, reminds us that if we are invented
several mythiological figures that give sense to our beings, it is for killing them
in favor of our secret desires to build others behavioral patterns.
Series 4 –
Audrey Piguet’s photographs
Audrey Piguet (1989) graduated from the Vevey Photography School in 2012
and won the second place at the 16th Prix des Jeunes Talents Suisses (VGF)
for her series “The Fall of the Hero”, exhibited at Maison d’Ailleurs and, previ-
ously, at the ELAC (Lausanne), at the Oslo Gallery 8 (Basel) and at the Jung-
kunst (Winterthur).
Audrey Piguet’s aesthetic establishes an ironical distance between
the superheroes’ traditional symbolic. They appear here exhausted, vulner-
able, racked with doubts. Their traditional shiny costumes contrast with the
pathetic that emerge of their expressions, their behaviors and their fragility.
Example – Wonder Woman
This old Wonder Woman – usually the symbol of the strong and the beautiful
feminity – seems to be sad, exhausted and fragile. Thus, a superhero who is
trying to deal with the same existential problems than us.
04
This is not a Love Song 1
Polystyrene, resin and gold, 190 x 40 x h 175 cm
Private collection © Adrian Tranquilli, 2005
The Fall of the Hero – Wonder Woman
Digital photography, 120 x 160 cm
© Audrey Piguet, 2012
15
Series 5 –
Alexandre Nicolas’ inclusions
Alexandre Nicolas (1970) receives the Superior Diploma of Plastic Expression
from the Toulouse’s School of Fine-Arts in 1997. Since 1994, he starts working
intensively with synthetic crystal – a difficult material, perfectly transparent,
which requires permanent technical skills. Technique, manipulation, transfor-
mation and experimentation are the keywords of his creative work.
This series of foetuses frozen in crystal symbolizes the imperious de-
mands imposed on us since our birth and during our entire life – like those super
heroes? Super-husbands or super-wives, super-parents or super-athletes, do
we still have the choice to be? Like the French artist’s foetuses – prisoners of
an invisible but very real resin block – it seems that we are born imprisoned
from the world, immured in the others’ transparent and hard desires.
Example – Jokerfœtus
“Even the super-vilains are stucked in their destiny,” seems to reminds us Al-
exandre Nicolas. The Joker – Batman traditional Nemesis – is here prisoner of
his character, whereas he’s still not born.
Jokerfœtus
Inclusion, synthesis cristal
23 x 23 x h 33 cm
© Alexandre Nicolas, 2011
06
TECHNICAL SHEET Exhibition material Summary overview of the material: Gilles Barbier 7 paintings, posca® and acrylic on polyester layer • 3x – 224 x 105.2 cm • 1x – 105.2 x 224 cm • 1x – 112 x 210.4 cm • 1x – 224 x 210.4 cm • 1x – 336 x 210.4 cm Mathias Schmied 43 cut-up comics on paper • Various dimensions: from 13.4 x 21.8 cm to 64 x 99 cm Adrian Tranquilli 4 sculptures, polystyrene, resin and gold • 190 x 40 x h 175 cm • 60 x 85 x h 165 cm • 240 x 160 x h 120 cm • 80 x 70 x h 120 cm + 130 x 130 cm Audrey Piguet 9 digital photographs • 4x - 70 x 50 cm • 4x - 50 x 70 cm • 1x - 120 x 160 cm Alexandre Nicolas 12 inclusions, synthesis cristal • 6x – 23 x 23 x h 33 cm • 6x – 21 x 21 x h 31 cm Costs The rental costs of the exhibition Superman, Batman & Co... mics! is 10’000 €. The installation, the dismantling, the transports (way and back) and the insurances “nail-to-nail” shall be a matter for the renter. It shall also be a matter for the renter to invite two people of the museum for participating in the installation of the exhibition and in the opening ceremony of the show (including the travel ex- panses, the hotel nights and the per diem). 07
Pictures
Gilles Barbier
08Mathias Schmied
09Adrian Tranquilli
10Audrey Piguet & Alexandre Nicolas
11Date: 21.03.2014
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Israel Hayom - Press (Israel) | 25.03.2014
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20 minuti - Press (CH-IT) | 24. 03. 2014
L’Hebdo - Press (CH-FR) | 20. 03. 2014
13Maison d’Ailleurs Museum of science fiction, utopia and extraordinary journeys Place Pestalozzi 14 Case Postale 945 CH - 1401 Yverdon-les-Bains T : +41 24 425 64 38 F : +41 24 425 65 75 www.ailleurs.ch – maison@ailleurs.ch Contact Marc Atallah, Director-curator of Maison d’Ailleurs T : +41 79 552 94 45 - matallah@ailleurs.ch
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