The Ever-Unresolved Dialogue between Contradictions by Sabyasachi Mullick.
The task of art might be said to make darkness visible. In other words, art pushes us to grasp the aspects of things and events that otherwise go unheard and unseen. And at this very point philosophy finds its place in art, for philosophy too treats the mundane in such a way that often entails a theory too fanciful to our common sense. This is the precise principle which serves as the ideational point of departure of the body of work presented in the ongoing solo exhibition A Second Coming, of the New Delhi and Marseille based French artist Julien Segard, at Experimenter Gallery, Bullyganj Place.
Segard’s poignant vision dissects the nature of dichotomies that pass under the names of nature vs. culture, organic vs. inorganic, space vs. matter and so on. Orchestrated to perfection by his bleak monochromatic charcoal and water colour paintings, his installations make us hear the dialogue between the organic and the inorganic. Marked by parsimonious craftsmanship, the installations bring together organic materials like wood, twig, bones, coral and seed in a synthetic harmony with inorganic materials like plastic, metal, plaster and processed ceramic. Following the legacy of Kurt Schwitters and many others, the artist sources almost all his materials from discarded readymade articles.
The pieces which call for special mention include Meteor – the collection of various suspended readymade and handmade objects like a constellation, each having a unique dynamic balance compounded with a perpetual twisting motion of its own. The work seems to extend the legacy of Miro and Kandinsky in three-dimensional space. Najafgarh is a sinister geometric assemblage of found wood, ply-board, paper etcetera in enormous scale; the installation consisting of a wriggling wooden form pitted against an intricate geometric shape; the large cluster of chair drawings made on sundry used boards and papers; and of course, the exquisitely balanced three dimensional composition infusing brute materiality into geometric sublimity.
Balance, both physical and formal, play no less a crucial role than in the work of Anthony Caro or Alexander Calder. The outcome, in essence is almost an alchemical transformation of the surrounding space. Though austere on the surface, the artful joining of twigs to form serpentine curves that shape the space reminisces the work of Richard Deacon.
A sincere observation would not miss the profound yet undercurrent philosophical implication of the pieces. In Segard’s vision, the line of dichotomy between the natural and the urban exists only to be transgressed. The organic takes over the inorganic, just as much as the world of artefacts claims all what is organic. This makes the viewer reformulate the distinction with evershifting perceptions as he moves from one piece to another. But the spirit of addressing this question is rather Hegelian than postmodern. A dialectical process between nature and culture can be felt to operate at the heart of his oeuvre. Each work embodies its own negation in terms of the constituent elements. The two apparent opposites give birth to a synthetic unity which in turn stands against a yet another opposite. Thus, each piece might be viewed as a dynamic contradiction. The process rolls towards an absolute ideal realized at infinity. Although the finite senses of man inevitably stops short of that point, he can only grasp the nature of reality structured in the principles of logic suggested by the paradigm of geometry. I think this explains the ubiquity of geometry as the unifying element of all his compositions. Things fall in place, reality hangs together as a whole in a delicate balance. Hence it’s no surprise balance is something that the artist is fascinated with.
‘Making darkness visible finds’ a literal trajectory as Segard sets out to make sense of the reality that is only known to the world of night. Stripped off the meaning endowed by their use in the daytime, objects and urban structures weave an enchanting yet nightmarish world of their own. A subliminal reality of that world takes shape in the installations.
Salvaging defunct, useless and poor articles using physical forces like gravity and pressure the artist brings salvation to the commonplace. In this respect the approach counts close to the late twentieth century Italian artistic movement arte povera. But a long stretch of aesthetic evolution (I have already mentioned some artists above) lurking behind the body of work resists any such categorization. Thus the Hegelian perspective of history shows through once more.
It’ll be no exaggeration to say that whoever takes any interest in modern art must visit this exhibition before it closes on 25th of June. After all, one doesn’t get to experience such compelling art everyday.
