Michel de Broin: Usure Mentale
September 4, 2008
de Broin has made a name for himself using innovative sculpture to transform the everyday, like his Black Whole Conference. But in this project, the sculpture was already made for him.
Backlighting the windows, the scratches are prominent in the foreground and the people in the train become silhouettes. The effect makes the scratches look like thought bubbles in a comic book emanating from passengers heads. And when there are two passengers in the frame, it looks as though there’s a conversation occurring.
“I found those scratches very interesting because it’s a very primitive way of expression. Like if you can imagine a primitive man without a pen using a rock in a cave writing his name. It’s interesting that there’s this elaborate technology—like a transport system—that is appropriated by this primitive gesture that is very raw”
Although de Broin acknowledges that this photographic work isn’t what he’s best known for, he says it’s an important part of his artistic process. Endeavoring to make things that demand attention and have a presence, de Broin looks for objects with resistance and then usually manipulates them to give them power.
“I can face my work one side or the other, and here what I did is representation [of resistance]… it’s always a part of the work and I like to go from one side to another. Maybe not in my main big projects, but in my research I’m interested in looking at these things.”
Accompanying the series of eight photographs in his new show is a new sculpture made of metal and glass. Shaped like an 80′s TV, the sculpture is really a fully functioning fireplace. The tuner opens the door, and the volume opens the vent.
Rather than attempting to be too conceptual, de Broin hopes the show elicits the primitive feelings it’s based on.
“TV is in the process of dematerialization [to plasma]. I was interested in if fire could take over the TV again in the home. I relate it to the show because it’s a primitive expression. You have the fire-a very essential communication of warmness—and the scratches that are both really primitive in a way but which are infiltrating the contemporary world.”
Usure Mentale will be on display from Sat September 6 – Sat October 11 at Montreal’s Galerie Donald Browne.
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