“I’ll never look into your eyes again”
– The Doors, This is the End.

In 2010, John Cornu was awarded the Prix Découverte des Amis du Palais de Tokyo and was given an exhibition in one of the modules of this same institution. Born in France in 1976, he seems not to show any partiality for one medium in particular. Declaring himself “on the look out for cultural techniques, forms or niches that are open to aesthetic experiences,”¹ the artist works just as readily with reinforced concrete––at the moment Melencolia at Cneai de Chatou––as with video, photography, performance, woodworking, neon lights or even and above all creative works in context. Although his practice may seem heterogeneous, the fact remains that his works borrow an ensemble of common guide lines, implying some recurrences such as the strong, at times inextricable, relationship to the presentation site² (Plan Libre, La function oblique, Wash art); an interest in historical, political and current ecological subjects (Laisse venir, Erratum, Cut up); a predilection for “materiological” games and simulacra that lead us to see beyond the immediately visible, disturbing our perception of the real world (Beauty shots, Sibylline); and most recently, reformulating the idea of romanticism by exploring certain codes of art from the 1960s-1970s (materials, forms, presentation displays, production protocol) and some modernist utopias from the viewpoint of fiction, ruin and destruction (Assis sur l’obstacle, Sonatine ((Mélodie mortelle), Macula).

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

This last focus was moreover what was chosen for his residency at LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE in the fall of 2009. Titled Tant que les heures passent, Part II, this project was the second part of a trilogy that began in Lyon in the context of the Biennale d’art contemporain (Attrape-couleurs, France), and concluded in Brussels (Galerie Sébastien Ricou, Belgium).

During the five weeks of work in residence in Quebec City, John Cornu concentrated all his energy on producing two sculptural projects: one of monumental carpentry (Je tuerai la pianiste); and a conceptual production in which the work was delegated to Pierre Paquin, a cabinetmaker who became blind following a degenerative illness (Tirésias paintings). Two very different carpentry projects; however, both proceed from an aesthetic of disappearance and of blindness.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

Although the Lyon exhibition (Tant que les heures passent, Part I) already included a work of eroded carpentry (Macula), it really is at LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE that the artist initiated his research on falsely charred ruins, which would generate the series Sans titres (verticales) and sculpture pieces such as Laisse le vent du soir decider.

Je tuerai la pianiste thus was a structure both authoritarian and delicate that ran right across the space of LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE. A real architectural fiction on the scale of the exhibition place, the work proposed the enactment of a damaged wall partition sketched out with about sixty lengths of wood.

Note that this aesthetic of the accident, of crash was already present in Lyon in the installation Corps flottant – the name of these more or less dark and defined filaments that, fluttering next to the vitreous body of the eye, intervene between the subject and the visible world. As if working against himself, the artist has attempted to crumple the geometric schema governing some of his compositions in kit form such as Rosanna, Rosanna, Arcélor tubuline or even Urbicande, showing at the moment at BF15 in Lyon and in Morlaix Bay in Brittany. Corps flottant was an assemblage of painted aluminum tubes, curving in the air. The initial structure, formally close to those that form the rails for plasterboard on construction sites, seems to have been roughly handled, thrown into the architecture of the place so that it has become embedded in one of the corners. Although showing signs of violence, it nevertheless displays no other apparent mark of distortion. It was exhibited as new, absolutely impeccable contrary to Je tuerai la pianiste, which appears much more damaged. Carbonized, like the victim of a poetic fire, the work is exhibited broken, eroded and blackened.

Each of the verticals forming this latter work, in fact, has been carefully sanded down until the knots of wood protrude, and then are painted black. Between difference and repetition, the artist thus lets the material dictate the final form of the pieces of wood. Fluctuating, wavering, Je tuerai la pianiste was a representation, a pure simulacrum made of sculpted and painted wood. Melancholic, it evoked an apocalyptic narrative, having an aesthetic of ruins.

A broken skeletal work, Je tuerai la pianiste proposes a mentally ambiguous scenario: the end of a story in which the cause has been eliminated. We, the visitors, arrive after the accident to note the damage and the weakened ensemble without knowing why this has happened. We have been placed in front of a residue, the ruins of a world without any explanation. However, this burned carcass could appear painfully familiar. Kind of in the manner of a memorial or a monument, Je tuerai la pianiste evokes our collective memory. This is only the fragment of a vaster and more universal story, a “dynamic” fragment in sum embellished with images of all the other catastrophes, all the other devastated areas and all the other stories.

And what if the fragmented nature of this narrative in the end is only an expression of the present, a response to reality, a document-evidence forming a part of this society of spectacle, an indexed structure specific to our era?

This dark and melancholic vision of a dislocated modern world is in fact increasingly evoked in John Cornu’s work along side defence apparatus and other paranoiac device. Examples are his productions such as Par la meurtrière, Fleurs (flash-ball fired on wired glass) or even Assis sur l’obstacle presented last February at Palais de Tokyo. Inspired by the expression “Sitting on the Fence,” this latter work lies between “documentary sculpture”––if one considers that they are Czech hedgehogs or anti-tank obstacles like those that were positioned on the beaches of Normandy––, inverted Holy Crosses and certain artworks of the 1960s-1970s. Indecisive and ambiguous³, this installation brilliantly synthesizes a radical and serial aesthetic, and a more anguished “expressionist” narrative. A strange mixing that was found as well in the artist’s second Quebec production that combined conceptual work and a minimal facture in a highly poetic project.

Unlike that of Je tuerai la pianist, the production of the Tirésias paintings⁴ was delegated entirely to a craftsperson. Well before he came to Quebec, John Cornu, in fact, had planned to entrust the making of a symbolic object to a person who has no visual referent. And it was by a fortunate combination of circumstances that the artist, while surfing the Internet in July 2009, discovered a human-interest report on Pierre Paquin⁵, a non-seeing cabinetmaker at work. This cabinetmaker was able to learn how to adapt his skills before he went completely blind so that he could continue to carry on his professional activities from memory. Having exchanged several emails with the cabinetmaker and presented his drawings, John Cornu asked Paquin to fabricate four stretchers, normally used to present paintings. “I have thought about this and I would like you to make painting stretchers (the wood structure that holds the canvas). I think four stretchers of 100 cm by 81 cm. The idea is to make them as close as possible to the stretchers sold in the stores. […] The best thing would be to buy a standard model (I will pay the expenses) and try to reproduce it with your skills.”⁶ Presented on the ground or hung on the wall, the four frames of plain wood were then displayed, exhibited for what they are, without their customary canvas.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

In response to this and to recount this poetic human adventure, the Tirésias paintings in the Brussels exhibition (Tant que les heures passent, Part III) were accompanied by a short publication, relating the correspondence exchanged between the artist and the cabinetmaker, which furthermore, seems to be continuing…

As for the large barricade, this has been vandalized for the last time. Demolished and plundered, only about fifteen lengths of wood remained. And these were placed at regular intervals, as if to form a single work (Sans titre (verticals)), against one wall of Galerie Sébastien Ricou.

1. Ardenne, Paul, Daria de Beauvais, John Cornu and Christian Alandete, «Principe d’incertitude/Uncertainty Principle». 2011, in John Cornu, Arles: Analogues editions, p. 83.
2. John Cornu holds a PhD in Arts et sciences de l’art from Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. His doctoral thesis being “Art contextual et création.”
3. According to the artist, “One is in what Wittgenstein described as ‘seeing in this way’ that is to say, the fact that a same signifier is potentially the object of a plurality of signifieds.” in Ardenne, Paul, Daria de Beauvais, John Cornu and Christian Alandete, «Principe d’incertitude/Uncertainty Principle». 2011, in John Cornu, Arles: Analogues editions, p. 84.
4. The title of the work is taken from the hero of Greek mythology, who on loosing his sight obtained the gift of divination, this being the capacity of “seeing” beyond the visible.
5. Pierre Paquin’s Website [online]: www.ebenisterieleschutes.com (consulted on November 2, 2011).
6. From emails exchanged between the artist and the cabinetmaker.
Emma-Charlotte Gobry-Laurencin

The question of taking up a position in space is as much a matter of geography as it is of history. The act of creating a glass city sacrifices intimacy, in favor of the limpidity that characterizes transparency. The act of recreating a memory-city generates a means of positioning oneself that is determined precisely by site and the past. The capacity to see through buildings implies a fragile form of localization. So it was that, in her desire to retrace the city, Sarla Voyer developed an architecture of ‘anti-intimacy’. With private space entirely exposed, so landscape and the horizon remain visible, despite the act of construction. And so the apparent void created by Voyer emphasized the act of laying bare.

The home base; the home town

Voyer’s installation was constructed from objects that are commonly found in everyday domestic settings. From personal items to souvenirs, the objects reconstructed the architectural identity of the artist’s home town. The accumulated glass objects had the effect of holding strangers at a distance from the urban landscape so personal and so precious to Voyer. In effect, she created a ghost city. The audience was able to see through, as well as around, the space, which created the impression that the city was deserted, with only its maker able to truly feel at home; this was an architecture of the infinite.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

The artist’s home base was a fragile construction composed of multiple pieces of glass, a mass of souvenirs and secrets containing a world of rediscovery. The act of reconstituting an intimate relationship, of retracing a city, also explored the acts of merging and understanding, creating a dialogue with the mother figure. The various structures within the installation spoke of the numerous possibilities of returning to the cradle, of revisiting the memory of the mother.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

In the 20th Century, Walter Benjamin analyzed the relationship between transparency and an absence of habitat, stating that, “habitat must first be understood as a reflection of the period spent at the mother’s breast.”¹ On the subject of mobile glass homes designed by Loos and Le Corbusier, Benjamin asserted that, “It is no accident that glass is a hard, smooth material to which nothing can be fixed. A cold and sober material into the bargain. Objects made of glass have no “aura”. Glass is, in general, the enemy of secrets. It is also the enemy of possession.”² Thus, in Sarla Voyer’s installation we rediscovered the connection between the artist and her mother, between architecture and the maternal breast. In her choice of glass as a material, Voyer opted for a structure that revealed its own interior.

The assemblage of transparent and reflexive objects shaped the lines – or rather the curves – of the architectural and urban elements in Voyer’s labyrinthian city. Her placing of the collection of vases, ashtrays, carafes and glasses mimicked the vocabulary of urban settings. Whether placed horizontally or vertically, representing a pathway or a castle, the usual function of the objects was altered, as the physical characteristics of the items determined their transformation into construction materials. Despite the fact that the objects that Voyer had chosen were transparent, fragile and brittle, the glass forms created a solid exterior that spoke of protection. And so it was that the artist confronted us with an immaterial urban landscape.

A brittle no man’s land

The uninhabitable city that Sarla Voyer created was an unreal space, composed of real elements with connotations of both an intensely affective and practical nature, which spoke of the impossibility of creating an identical reconstruction of souvenirs and of memory. The space of cleanliness and purity in the work took on an identity only through the presence of the audience. The place created by Voyer had neither color nor scent, and offered no means of interaction. The audience were able to look but not touch, to observe without really knowing. We were offered access to a fictional representation of an intimate site. As Gaston Bachelard commented, “To give an object its own poetic space is to give it more space than it has objectively […], it is to follow the expansion of its intimate space.” ³

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

Voyer’s no man’s land was precarious. It created a tension between stability and collapse. Although the space was described as a city, the work presented an “in-between” zone, somewhere between the artist and the mother figure, intimacy and shared space, the void and an overflow, between the space of the city and that of identity. What we saw before us was both an uninhabited and uninhabitable place. The act of retracing involves following one’s own footsteps, redefining a place by leaving one’s mark, or creating a new trace of oneself. Sarla Voyer’s efforts to retrace the city, her home town, traced the contours of this no mans land, thereby protecting its secret, its silence and its transparency.

Voyer’s city was an invisible city, perceptible only by means of a few curves and contours that alluded to a melee of memories and stories. Her city offered both noise and silence as, in making us of a wealth of found objects, the artist created a true collector’s item.

1. Benjamin, Walter. 1986, Paris, capitale du XIXe siècle: Le livre des passages. Paris: Du Cerf editions, 972 p.
2. Heyne, Hilde. “Habiter dans une maison de verre”. 2003, in Exposé n.3, Volume 1. Orélans: HYX editions, 280 p.
3. Bachelard, Gaston. 1957, La poétique de l’espace. Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France, 215 p.

Stéfane Perraud’s work Maia (2009) featured a human skull displayed under a light whose intensity was so extreme that spectators had no choice but to avert their eyes, and seek an alternative means of engaging with the work. In Fireflies (2010), Perraud made use of light emitting diodes (LEDs) that created such a low level of light – a light that was barely there at all – that it immediately brought to mind that particular cool light produced by fireflies in their natural setting.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

The 350 LEDs, suspended in transparent plexiglas tubes, invited viewers to come closer and observe the detail of the diffraction of light within the grid of cylinders, or else to locate the point of origin of a burst of light around which there was an uncertainty: was this the beginning or the end of something; was it ON or OFF; did it mean flight or fall; was it referring to the present or the past? Stéfane Perraud’s lightning bugs evoked the fragility of meaning, the same fragility lay in what was on view.

Perraud’s Fireflies did more than hesitate: they swung between two movements, created by the same fixed force, in contrast to many of the artist’s recent works, which evolved over time (Lueurs, Amoebe, and the series Simulte and Maia). In this way, Fireflies was more aligned with Modifié#03-BI2 (2009) in which Jean-François Millet’s painting Des Glaneuses reappeared, transcoded in digital form. Whereas Modifié#03-BI2 created an interplay of distance and proximity, as we attempted to recover the memory of the painting signaled within it, Fireflies evoked a circular movement, which was the only means by which to take in the three-dimensionality of the swarm, and to grasp its dynamic in space.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

The moving eye of the viewer was an indispensable component of the work, given that it alone brought the swarm to life, removing it from petrification. If the viewer froze in front of the lightning bugs, they too became fixed in their strait jacket plexiglass containers. When the viewer moved, their élan gave the bugs flight. Élan, or rather desire, was very much at stake in the work. Fireflies was concerned with the desire to see, the desire to imagine movement emerging in space – a movement that reveals the object – the desire to avoid being snared in a form of despair from which there is no return: that of the immobilized and fossilized lightning bugs.

The low light of the lightning bugs, in contrast to the bright light of death that featured in Maia, evoked two contrasting themes: disappearance¹ and survival². Beyond the political overtones that these terms have, and perhaps beyond the field of the artist’s own interest, Fireflies underlines a trait that appeared in Maia and which speaks of a working method and a position that is typical of this visual artist.

To unpack this, Fireflies was born during Stéfane Perraud’s residency at LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE in February and March of 2010. It began with a series of white on white gouache paintings, in which certain key threads of the work appeared: the swarm, and attempts to create forms of movement that draw the viewer in. The conception of the work manifested and gestated here, in this first phase of inquiry, centered on the artist’s gesture.

crédit photo: Ivan Binet

Parallel to this, the process of creating the work was organized and planned to the minutest detail, before the production phase proper got underway. The work itself is fabricated, or assembled, in a process based essentially on repetition, in the course of which the artist – to use his own words – “no longer thinks or decides.” He has only to reproduce the movements that he himself has set in motion beforehand, and which are conceived in such a way as to inevitably include errors in their fabric that will upset the finely-calculated light of the LEDs in the plexiglass tubes.

The lightning bugs laughed in the face, resisted, troubled and perturbed all attempts at an almost-industrial level of exactitude, bringing with them a sense of imperfection and the fragility of the human hand.

1. Pasolini, Pier Paolo. “L’articolo delle lucciole”. 1975, dans Scritti corsari, 2 p.
2. Didi-Huberman, Georges. 2009, Survivance des lucioles. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 144 p.
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