Dorian Gaudin “The Coffee Cup Spring”

Nathalie Karg

This event has ended.

Continuing the work Dorian Gaudin produced for the exhibition Rites and Aftermath (Palais de Tokyo, 2017) the artist’s second solo exhibition at Nathalie Karg Gallery is comprised of, as a base structure, a long rolling conveyer belt. Its chains maintain fragments of architectural elements and floating mundane objects such as a coffee cup. The monotone repetition of the movement created by the conveyor belt recalls the pace and the landscape of animation or video games. As an extension of the conveyor, several geometric and orthogonal motifs evoking a Tetris composition are slotted together and suggest the shapes of a table, a chair or stairs. The objects are exposed on thin metal structures with fringed ends, and seem to peel off from their construction, as if they were undressing and exchanging skins, depriving themselves of sculptural depth and allowing only the surface to emerge. The technique developed by the artist to produce the sculptures inverts the usual steps of printing: first the pattern is created, then the background to which the fiberglass support is apposed. The pieces are therefore ripped off their mold, revealing their final texture, and the motif on every sculpture seems to remain the same, yet is altered by the shape of the object itself. A series of wall works using this procedure extends from the installation into the gallery space.

In his theory “Object-Oriented Ontology,” American philosopher Graham Harman states that “the world is clearly not the one as manifest to humans,” suggesting that objects have the same autonomy as do humans. Dorian Gaudin, influenced by mechanical and kinetic art, engineers in his practice series of sculptures and installations that defy gravity and dimensions, punctuated by motors and tensions. Machine rituals and optical illusions are points of departure for his production, and the artist pays a particular attention to movement and the choreography of objects, composing a Ballet Mécanique* of aluminum, chrome and fiberglass.

-Martha Kirszenbaum

*Ballet Mécanique (1923-24) is a Dadaist film conceived, written, and co-directed by the artist Fernand Léger

Dorian Gaudin (b. 1986 in Paris, France) is a New York-based artist who works in sculpture and installation. He studied at the École Nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (2009), the École Nationale supérieure des Beaux Arts, Paris (2011) and Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing, France (2011). His installations often include masterfully engineered machines that lack any explicit purpose, yet move spontaneously, animated from within. These autonomous and unpredictable works of art allow us to question the nature of objects and whether we can engage with machines as active users or are in factpassive viewers. Gaudin’s work has been shown at galleries and institutions nationally and internationally, including Palais de Tokyo, Paris. His work will be included in the Guangzhou Triennial (2018) and the Greater Taipei Biennial of Contemporary Art (2018).