Folklore Contemporain III is an investigation into the folkloric heritages and
the new folklores of the 2010’s, through the practices of Bastien Aubry &
Dimitri Broquard, based in Zurich and Anne de Vries, living in Berlin. This show
addresses the works of those artists crafting the artefacts of our age with
‘dated techniques’ but contemporary references or contemporary techniques
and references from the past. For their first show in Scotland, the three artists
will be presenting new body of works.
Bastien Aubry and Dimitri Broquard have made several absurd and squinty
pieces of furniture playing freely with notions of craft and design. Made from
melamine panels, recalling basic furniture kits and hand made ceramic
brackets, the sculptures divert the materials from their usual functionality.
Ceramics, which are central in Aubry & Broquard’s practice are no longer
simply decorative pieces but are necessary to the structure. Aubry & Broquard
offer a new body of hand crafted pieces demonstrating a mastery of the
technique and its conceptual stakes.
Anne de Vries has been producing a series of process based portraits sharing
as many links with classic anatomical drawings as cutting edge neurology.
These five layered photographic collages give access to other human beings’
brain activity. The prints try to capture the incapacity we all face to perceive
things instantly resulting in an infinite number of enigmatic narrations.
Folklore Contemporain III creates ties between two very different practices.
While the first one refers to craft, the second one uses high technology but
both focuses on a certain idea of the network. Interconnexions, links and
junctions, are where the three artists meet.
Nowadays, the “curator-folklorist” has to consider vernacular practices such
as GIFs, memes, Clipart creations or Photoshop effects as well as traditional
“savoir-faire” when examining the current mythos. One never finds time to
sleep, already busy dealing with pre-existing fables and customs transmitted by
all the previous generations of artists. New forms emerge continuously and
collectively. Like mythology, art technique evolves without authorship or
copyright.
This show is the third and last show of exhibition series Folklore Contemporain at
SWG3 Gallery exploring how contemporary artists draw their inspiration from
legends, popular beliefs, customs and traditions of different cultures to appropriate
them and create new myths and new crafts. Previous shows in the series included
Laura Aldridge & Travess Smalley in 2012 and Aaron Angell & Jack Bilbo in 2013.
