FR/
Du 25 avril au 25 mai 2013, la galerie Laurent Strouk présente les œuvres récentes de Jean Pierre Raynaud.
Tout au long de sa carrière Jean Pierre Raynaud s’est approprié les signes et les objets qui nous entourent comme base de son vocabulaire pour communiquer de façon très personnelle. Jean Pierre Raynaud est un artiste français né en 1939. Il est associé à ses débuts aux Nouveaux Réalistes. Mais très vite il s’en détachera pour ne pas être apparenté à un mouvement et affirmer la singularité de sa démarche. Construisant, détruisant au bénéfice des œuvres d’art, il nous place face à la réalité, à sa réalité. Les drapeaux, les pots, la signalisation, et même le carrelage, tout en gardant leur signification première, ne détournent pas l’objet de son sens mais le sens de celui qui l’observe. Jean Pierre Raynaud travaille par série. C’est une logique qu’il adore : « avoir un seul sujet et le répéter éternellement ». Le pot a marqué le début de sa carrière artistique. Il est la mémoire de son passé de jardinier mais il est devenu au fil des années, au fil de sa vie, un véritable référent mental. Par ses couleurs, ses dimensions et son emplacement géographique, le pot évolue et se renouvelle sans cesse. Raynaud fait vivre cet emblème, il le fait littéralement voyager « pour retarder son entrée dans l’univers des objets figés que représentent les musées ». Il réalise ainsi de véritables performances artistiques : un pot doré géant, avant de s’établir définitivement au centre Georges Pompidou à Paris, a été exposé au cœur de la Cité Interdite à Pékin et suspendu à l’extrémité d’une grue au dessus du chantier de la Potsdamer Platz à Berlin. Un pot rouge fluo a également été immergé en mer Rouge. En 1998, il amorce un travail sur le drapeau. D’abord bleu-blanc-rouge, ses « objets drapeaux » se parent des couleurs de pays du monde entier. Son ambition est de sortir celui-ci de son carcan politique, de le porter au delà des contraintes économiques historiques et religieuses et par là, de lui redonner son statut d’objet.
A l’occasion de notre exposition, Raynaud fusionne ces deux objets emblématiques de sa carrière. On retrouve ainsi entre autres des objets drapeaux aux couleurs du Cameroun, du Mali, de la Russie, des Etats-Unis, d’Israël, de la Guinée, et bien sûr de la France. Les carreaux de céramique blancs à joint noir rythment également l’œuvre de l’artiste. Ils lui servent d’unité de construction pour ses installations et plus particulièrement pour l’édification de sa propre maison de la Celle Saint-Cloud qui sera sa principale œuvre d’art. Mais Raynaud dépasse l’usage même du carreau en tant que matériau de construction : il le fait apparaître en tant qu’objet, en tant que support d’impression. Sur ce matériau froid et cassant, l’artiste imprime en 1993 un crâne néolithique mettant en scène l’esthétique de la violence et notre fin inéluctable. Dans ce nouvel accrochage, le crâne est associé à la signalétique. La flèche remplace le sens interdit des années 60. Elle symbolise l’affirmation de soi. Elle restitue l’artiste dans le monde, dans le réel. Au bout de la flèche se trouve Raynaud, son empreinte. Raynaud utilise nos codes collectifs, nos codes identitaires. Mais il ne travaille pas que sur le quotidien : par la série des « actualités », il donne également à l’Histoire un regard nouveau. Il se fait archéologue du futur et mêle dans des boîtes de plexiglas des journaux datés à des gravats tristes, symboles d’évènements déchirants tels la destruction des Twin Towers de New York, la catastrophe nucléaire de Fukushima ou encore les soulèvements qui ensanglantent la Lybie et l’Egypte. Les témoignages de l’homme et de la Terre se trouvent ainsi inextricablement liés et érigés en preuve, en objet de mémoire. « On n’a pas intérêt à échapper à ce que l’on est » c’est ce que Raynaud nous montre en reprenant ses thèmes majeurs (pot, drapeau, carreau de céramique blanc, signalétique) et en réaffirmant son empreinte artistique.
EN/
From April 25 to May 25, 2013, the Laurent Strouk Gallery presents recent works by Jean Pierre Raynaud.
Throughout his career, Jean Pierre Raynaud has appropriated the signs and objects that surround us as the basis of his vocabulary to communicate in a very personal way. Jean Pierre Raynaud is a French artist born in 1939. He is associated at the beginning with the New Realists. But very quickly he will detach himself from it to not be related to a movement and to assert the singularity of his approach. Building destroying for the benefit of the works of art it places us in front of the reality to its reality. The flags, the pots, the signs and even the tiles, while keeping their original meaning, do not divert the object from its meaning but the meaning of the observer. Jean Pierre Raynaud works by series. It is a logic that he loves: "to have a single subject and repeat it eternally". The pot marked the beginning of his artistic career. It is the memory of his past as a gardener, but over the years it has become a real mental reference point. Through its colors, its dimensions and its geographical location, the pot evolves and is constantly renewed. Raynaud brings this emblem to life, literally making it travel "to delay its entry into the world of frozen objects that museums represent. He thus carries out real artistic performances: a giant golden pot before settling permanently in the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris was exhibited in the heart of the Forbidden City in Beijing and suspended at the end of a crane above the construction site of the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. A fluorescent red pot was also immersed in the Red Sea. In 1998, he started working on the flag. Initially blue-white-red, his "flag objects" are adorned with the colors of countries around the world. His ambition is to take the flag out of its political straitjacket, to take it beyond historical and religious economic constraints, and thus to give it back its status as an object. On the occasion of our exhibition, Raynaud merges these two emblematic objects of his career. We find among others objects flags in the colors of Cameroon, Mali, Russia, the United States, Israel, Guinea and of course, France. The white ceramic tiles with black joints also give rhythm to the artist's work. They serve as a building block for his installations and more particularly for the construction of his own house in La Celle Saint-Cloud, which will be his main work of art. But Raynaud goes beyond the use of the tile as a construction material: he makes it appear as an object as a printing medium. In 1993, the artist printed a Neolithic skull on this cold, brittle material, depicting the aesthetics of violence and our inevitable end. In this new exhibition, the skull is associated with signage. The arrow replaces the "one way" sign of the 1960s. It symbolizes the affirmation of oneself. It restores the artist in the world in the real. At the end of the arrow is Raynaud his print. Raynaud uses our collective codes, our identity codes. But he does not work only on the daily life: by the series of the "actualities" he also gives to the History a new glance. He becomes an archaeologist of the future and mixes in Plexiglas boxes dated newspapers with sad rubble symbols of heartbreaking events such as the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York, the nuclear disaster of Fukushima, or the uprisings that bloodied Libya and Egypt. The testimonies of man and the Earth are thus inextricably linked and erected in evidence as an object of memory. "We have no interest in escaping what we are" is what Raynaud shows us by taking up his major themes (flag pot, white ceramic tile, signage) and by reaffirming his artistic imprint.
Throughout his career, Jean Pierre Raynaud has appropriated the signs and objects that surround us as the basis of his vocabulary to communicate in a very personal way. Jean Pierre Raynaud is a French artist born in 1939. He is associated at the beginning with the New Realists. But very quickly he will detach himself from it to not be related to a movement and to assert the singularity of his approach. Building destroying for the benefit of the works of art it places us in front of the reality to its reality. The flags, the pots, the signs and even the tiles, while keeping their original meaning, do not divert the object from its meaning but the meaning of the observer. Jean Pierre Raynaud works by series. It is a logic that he loves: "to have a single subject and repeat it eternally". The pot marked the beginning of his artistic career. It is the memory of his past as a gardener, but over the years it has become a real mental reference point. Through its colors, its dimensions and its geographical location, the pot evolves and is constantly renewed. Raynaud brings this emblem to life, literally making it travel "to delay its entry into the world of frozen objects that museums represent. He thus carries out real artistic performances: a giant golden pot before settling permanently in the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris was exhibited in the heart of the Forbidden City in Beijing and suspended at the end of a crane above the construction site of the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. A fluorescent red pot was also immersed in the Red Sea. In 1998, he started working on the flag. Initially blue-white-red, his "flag objects" are adorned with the colors of countries around the world. His ambition is to take the flag out of its political straitjacket, to take it beyond historical and religious economic constraints, and thus to give it back its status as an object. On the occasion of our exhibition, Raynaud merges these two emblematic objects of his career. We find among others objects flags in the colors of Cameroon, Mali, Russia, the United States, Israel, Guinea and of course, France. The white ceramic tiles with black joints also give rhythm to the artist's work. They serve as a building block for his installations and more particularly for the construction of his own house in La Celle Saint-Cloud, which will be his main work of art. But Raynaud goes beyond the use of the tile as a construction material: he makes it appear as an object as a printing medium. In 1993, the artist printed a Neolithic skull on this cold, brittle material, depicting the aesthetics of violence and our inevitable end. In this new exhibition, the skull is associated with signage. The arrow replaces the "one way" sign of the 1960s. It symbolizes the affirmation of oneself. It restores the artist in the world in the real. At the end of the arrow is Raynaud his print. Raynaud uses our collective codes, our identity codes. But he does not work only on the daily life: by the series of the "actualities" he also gives to the History a new glance. He becomes an archaeologist of the future and mixes in Plexiglas boxes dated newspapers with sad rubble symbols of heartbreaking events such as the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York, the nuclear disaster of Fukushima, or the uprisings that bloodied Libya and Egypt. The testimonies of man and the Earth are thus inextricably linked and erected in evidence as an object of memory. "We have no interest in escaping what we are" is what Raynaud shows us by taking up his major themes (flag pot, white ceramic tile, signage) and by reaffirming his artistic imprint.
