Until October 8th at Aponia – Le Monastier-sur-Gazeille
Curator : Alain Barret
Saint-Jean Church in Monastier-sur-Gazeille – Picture Baptiste Roux
Apo…calypse… Calypso… It is with this title, both enigmatic and poetic, that Baptiste Roux invites us to discover an important selection of works which subtly mix delight and disgust… the ingredients of a thrilling odyssey!
The journey begins in the Aponia contemporary art center, inaugurated for the occasion in a Renaissance building, in Monastier-sur-Gazeille in Haute-Loire. On two levels, in an atmosphere that is both historical and contemporary, the works have in common a form of technical and physical mutation. From the start, the sketches, the shapes reveal themselves to be carnal. In this allusion to the body and substance… the drawing is as alive as it is cadaverous… as figurative as it is abstract. Abstraction is also confirmed when the drawing becomes digital. It becomes another body and another identity. The form becomes more pop and graphic, colorful, sometimes even urban… while the support crumples… twists… or asserts itself in the negative through the recycling of materials. The image also alters like a Polaroid emulsion transfer. It has something immediate, instantaneous and at the same time an air of immortality. There is a strength and power inherent in the very production of these large formats that emerge from the wall. It becomes even more poignant when we find there the contemporary emanation of a vanity… our ephemeral life as man and as matter.
The work of Baptiste Roux is not just a work that we hang on the wall as decoration. It is an expressionism that is both figurative and abstract and contains an element of diversion and subversion, like these composite crucifixes mixing, among other things, gnawing bones and expanded foam… or these sculptures which sit deliciously… like so many pastries on the table… display of a butcher. The image may seem unusual and surreal. Yet this is the remarkable effect that emerges from the “staging” of the works in the Saint-Jean church of Monastier-sur-Gazeille… what could be better for an Apocalypse. The dialogue between historical heritage and contemporary art begins at the entrance with the imposing “Chimère écorchée” (“skinned chimera” – a reference to the motif of the skinned ox), suspended facing the crucifixion of the altar in the manner of a martyr. Works, literally in the flesh, like collages, punctuate the space and inhabit it naturally. At first glance, the bright, tangy, “glossy” or sweet colors (with a predominance of pink)… have a comforting and positive side… delicious like foam or ice cream spilled by a clumsy child. However, very quickly, another interpretation comes to disturb the visitor. The coulis becomes blood, the foam becomes flesh and the ice becomes a carcass… The bones are protruding like butcher’s hooks. The appetite then turns to nausea. The exhibition becomes a fierce autopsy of humanity… sometimes a festive banquet… sometimes a funeral one. Like a vanitas, a still life, what ultimately prevails for the visitor is a tremendous sensation of life…
More information :
https://www.instagram.com/baptiste_roux93/
ABSTRACT MIMESIS 