Palais de Tokyo Museum exhibits Daniel Dewar & Gregory Gicquel Duo

Monday, 23 April 2007 23:34

PARIS - A duo of sculptors, Daniel Dewar & Grégory Gicquel cultivate the art of telescoping allied with a popular and hybrid conception of the work of art. Since they presented their portable sawmill Echo PPK, and various "hand-made" objects - Nike shoes, a BMX bicycle frame - the work of the artists has gradually shifted towards different areas, different formal worlds, while remaining attached to the practice of sculpture and the production of "ready-hand-mades".  On exhibition until 6 May, 2007.

How is it possible to come up with a work that involves both craftsmanship and industry, art and design, pop and conceptual art?  These are the questions the two Frenchmen seem to ask, not hesitating to use multiple references to the world of popular hobbies such as fishing, surfing, car tuning/styling and skating.

Nineteenth-century Japanese culture also serves as a source of inspiration in their approach, reflected in some of the titles of their works that come in the form of short poems, or haikus: La couleur vert détachée de la montagne suit le mouvement de la truite prise (Sekite Hara) [The silhouetted green of the mountain follows the movement of the caught trout] is the title of an improbable totemic sculpture combining wood and wool.  Thus through a universe that is simultaneously conceptual, narrative and close to science-fiction, Daniel Dewar and Grégory Gicquel succeed in creating stories involving an elephant and a geisha, a car and a piercing or even a pearl necklace and motorbike helmets, overturning the codes of contemporary sculpture in the process.

For their first joint solo exhibition in a Paris museum, Dewar & Gicquel are showing a collection of hitherto unseen new sculptures that keep faith with their protean and radical universe.  Thus a combi (camper-van) sculpted and carved out of granite, a monumental Shimenawa twisted out of synthetic thread, a series of ocarinas made from painted wood and cement, and finally a woollen rug with trans-Peruvian motifs form this unusual collection of full-size sculptures.

Daniel Dewar & Grégory Gicquel have collaborated since studying together at Art College in Rennes.  Their work has already been exhibited at Frac Pays de Loire, the Galerie Edouard Manet in Gennevilliers, 40 M CUBE in Rennes and more recently at Instants Chavirés in the context of the Seine Saint Denis Biennial, and at the Galerie Hervé Loevenbruck, Paris.

Visit Le Palais de Tokyo Museum at : www.palaisdetokyo.com/