PREMIERE COMMUNION / SOLO SHOW / CENTRE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN LE KIOSQUE - CHAPELLE DES CALVAIRIENNES / 2019
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Curated by Mathias Courtet
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When Mozart composes the Magic Flute, he imagines a world both baroque and inspired by ancient Egypt ... Pushing the door of the Chapel des Calvairiennes, built in 1624 in Mayenne, is to feel the same emotion. In front of the huge, richly ornamented altarpiece, designer Jean-Baptiste Fastrez installed two obelisks and a black pyramid which, instead of crushing the altarpiece, put it back in the center of attention. The role of this device several meters high is to enhance its environment. Quite the opposite of the absolute black of the artist Anish Kapoor who "absorbs" what surrounds him ...
On his flanks and all around, the designer, who recently received the Grand Prize for Creation from the City of Paris, exhibits for the first time all of his work in "Premiere communion", a monographic exhibition presented until December 15. “He imagined a sort of disco temple, by fixing his iridescent“ mask ”sconces on the obelisks. We are in the midst of mixing cultures, "analyzes Mathias Courtet, responsible for this chapel converted into a center for contemporary art. “In the same way, his little roly-poly toys created for the Manufacture de Sèvres are inspired by Star Wars vessels… In Jean-Baptiste's work floats like a madeleine perfume. When I discovered his mask, I felt the same thing as when I listened to the first song of Daft Punk, "describes the curator. The entire exhibition is in keeping: on the carpet with neon patterns ultra-contemporary is placed the Anubis ceramic vase inspired by ancient Egypt.
In the back of the altarpiece, a bright room hosts his research notebooks, his diploma work and his Olo lamps, inspired by video cameras, but especially the Zodiac mirrors, designed for the publisher Moustache, whose frame is made of large tubes in ceramic, the scenography seems to constantly observe the visitor, like this wall of mirrors. A feeling that continues when you return to the first room: the Nil mirror installed in the back of the pyramid skillfully reflects details of the altarpiece. In the small chapels bordering the nave, other mirrors are scattered - a typology that Jean-Baptiste Fastrez likes - between two wooden shelves specially made for the exhibition.
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Texte by Marie Godfrain in IDEAT / 05 décembre 2019
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