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INCASSABLE

Berdaguer&Péjus, Grégoire Bergeret, Cathryn Boch, Gaëlle Chotard, Céline Cléron, Erik Dietman, Hreinn Friðfinnsson, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, Charles Le Hyaric, Frédérique Loutz, Javier Pérez, Raphaëlle Peria, JC Ruggirello, Elsa Sahal, Linda Sanchez, Didier Trenet, Sabrina Vitali, VOID

1 February - 1 March 2025

BERDAGUER&PÉJUS - FR Christophe Berdaguer born 1968, Marie Péjus born 1969. Live and work in Marseille

Christophe Berdaguer and Marie Péjus explore the interactions between the body, architecture and technology. Their work Cire anatomique (2021) embodies this research, fusing flesh and mechanics in a hybrid, organic sculpture. Dislocated in space, it oscillates between attraction and repulsion, playing with the materiality and perception of the body. It offers a reflection on a transhumanism in which bodily boundaries become permeable. Inspired by an experience of disability, this work freezes the fragility of movement while sculpting a new form of presence. It does not robotise the human being, but places it in dialogue with the machine, in a relationship of symbiosis and interdependence.

GRÉGOIRE BERGERET – FR 1980, Annecy, France - 2020, Brussels, Belgium

Grégoire Bergeret was a singular artist, exploring the limits of reality and play through his absurd experiments. His work Terre Boum (2015) is a perfect illustration of this approach: an explosive mix of diverted materials and unusual processes. Always on the lookout for new discoveries, he is said to have perfected techniques as unlikely as lost-snow casting and citrus carbide. With humour and ingenuity, he manipulated everyday objects to reveal unexpected aspects. His work defies artistic convention by combining chance, manipulation and material poetry.

CATHRYN BOCH – FR Born in Strasbourg in 1968. Lives and works in Marseille

In her work Sans titre (2012), Cathryn Boch transforms press images into eroded, enigmatic fragments. Through a complex process combining liquids and successive drying, she ‘sugars’ the representations, blurring their meaning and imposing a silence on figuration. Between opacity and transparency, her works transform the unbearable into visual sweetness, akin to white magic. The recurring materials of thread and sugar come together in a fluid, fragile plasticity, oscillating between disappearance and attachment. Her compositions stitch together past and present, revealing a memory in perpetual recomposition.

GAËLLE CHOTARD – FR Born in Montpellier in 1973. Lives and works in Nogent-sur-Marne

Somewhere between drawing and sculpture, Gaëlle Chotard's research explores the intimate and the strange through airy, organic forms. Her work Sans titre (2023) embodies a fragile balance between density and lightness, combining metal wires and ceramics. She sees space as a blank page, where her creations play with emptiness, light and shadow. Working with wire as an extension of the drawn line, she weaves shifting volumes that seem to float. The density of ceramic accentuates the tension between suppleness and rigidity. Inspired by her extensive graphic work, her fantastical sculptures oscillate between presence and absence. They evoke the body, the landscape and a sensitive dimension where the material dialogues with the ephemeral.

CÉLINE CLÉRON – FR Born in 1976 in Poitiers, France. Lives and works in Paris

Céline Cléron explores memory and history through works that combine ancient knowledge, forgotten representations and subtle misappropriations. À poing fermé (2023) illustrates this approach by playing on analogies and visual anomalies. Inspired by archaeology and ancient iconography, the work transforms a symbolic gesture into a fixed form, questioning the tension between strength and fragility. Through disruptions of scale and play on meaning, Céline Cléron creates a memorial short-circuit that disturbs our perception. 

ERIK DIETMAN – SE 1937, Jönkönping, Sweden - 2002, Paris, France

With Le Client (1993) and Vierge de Torcello (1995), Erik Dietman explores the transparency of blown glass, infusing it with humour and a sense of misuse. Produced at the CIRVA, these sculptures play on the ambiguity between form and meaning, in the image of his ‘thought/wound objects’. Glass, a fragile and elusive material, becomes the medium for a reflection on the relationship between art and its viewer. True to his experimental approach, Dietman combines skill and spontaneity, alternating mastery and chance. His gestures, sometimes precise, sometimes instinctive, sculpt works that oscillate between lightness and heaviness.

HREINN FRIÐFINNSSON – IS 1943, Baer Dölum, Iceland - 2024, Amsterdam, Netherlands

The work of Hreinn Friðfinnsson, a key figure in Icelandic conceptual art, plays with the poetic, the playful and the elusive. Between narrative, nature and time, he constructs works in which dualities and reversals disrupt reference points. Rounding the Corner (2001) illustrates this approach by capturing a moment of transition, a moment when we switch from one state to another. Difficult to pin down, the work evokes an experience as much as an imperceptible shift, a passage between the visible and the invisible. Friðfinnsson transforms ordinary elements into fragments of open narratives, suspended between reality and imagination. The work becomes a tipping point, a secret to be deciphered, a story waiting to be completed.

MEHDI-GEORGES LAHLOU – FR/MA Born in 1983 in Les Sables-d'Olonne. Lives and works between Paris and Brussels

Mehdi-Georges Lahlou questions memory and identity through works in which the human and the non-human engage in dialogue. Uncertain Black Stone (2016) embodies this reflection, featuring an enigmatic black ‘stone’ that is both a vestige of time and a sacred object. Its irregular surface absorbs light, while a polished cavity, marked by countless contacts, plays with reflections. A symbol of migration and transmission, it bears the traces of an unknown ritual, oscillating between archaeology and myth. The artist blends intimate archives with collective narratives, exploring the fluidity of cultures and the porosity of identities. Perhaps the remnant of a meteorite or a relic from a forgotten past, this ‘stone’ seems charged with cosmic energy. Somewhere between science and the sacred, it questions our relationship with origins and beliefs, leaving us in doubt: does it contain an ancient memory or a promise of the future?

CHARLES LE HYARIC – FR Born in Paris in 1987. Lives and works in Marseille

Charles Le Hyaric draws his inspiration from nature and time, collecting objects transformed by erosion to incorporate into his work. His compositions, a blend of the real and the dreamlike, evoke a sensory journey imbued with silence and weightlessness. His work Le Secret de Polichinelle (2016), made of cobblestone, concrete, gold and glue, embodies this duality: both raw and refined. Concrete and cobblestone, solid materials, are contrasted with the brilliance of gold, symbolising the ephemeral and the precious. The work seems to conceal a secret, a buried truth that is slowly revealed thanks to the dynamism of the materials. Between vestiges of the past and magical light, his art reveals a beauty suspended between land and sea.

FRÉDÉRIQUE LOUTZ – FR Born in 1974 in Sarreguemines. Lives and works in Paris

In Poisse (2013), made from blown glass at the CIAV in Meisenthal, Frédérique Loutz creates a hybrid sculpture in which the drawing seems to have escaped from the paper to take shape. Somewhere between monstrous and familiar, the work explores a phantasmagorical universe where shapes jostle and transform. True to her approach to contrast, Loutz mixes techniques without seeking to fuse them, accentuating the tensions between matter and line. Poisse embodies this quest for perpetual renewal, where each line, each volume, seems to reinvent itself while escaping a fixed definition. The sculpture, raw and expressive, plays with the accidental and the unforeseen, evoking an uncertain bestiary populated by indefinable creatures.

JAVIER PÉREZ – ES Born 1968 in Bilbao, Spain. Lives and works in Barcelona

Javier Pérez explores the fragility of the body and the ephemeral dimension of time through installations where the organic and the mechanical meet. Tempus Fugit (2002) embodies this reflection with an arm in polyester resin, moulded onto a real arm and suspended under a bell jar of blown glass. Linked by red ropes and a mechanism, this frozen limb seems animated by a ghostly movement, evoking the passage of time and the wear and tear of the body. The transparency of the glass contrasts with the density of the arm, creating a tension between protection and confinement. The almost ritualistic rhythm of the mechanism lends the installation a solemn atmosphere, in which the body becomes an organic clock. In Tempus Fugit (from the Latin, ‘time that flees’), Pérez questions physical memory and the trace left by the living, where suspended time becomes both presence and disappearance.

RAPHAËLLE PERIA – FR Born in 1989 in Amiens. Lives and works in Paris

Raphaëlle Peria is an artist who explores shapes and textures through a poetic approach to materials. In her work 360° en barque 7 (2024), a vase-sculpture in slip on stoneware, she fuses functionality and aesthetics with great sensitivity. Here, stoneware, a raw and timeless material, becomes a support on which the artist gives shape to a circular movement, like a boat in perpetual motion. The fluid, sinuous lines of the work evoke the dance of water and the journey, an endless crossing through time and space. The use of slip, with its subtle nuances, enriches the surface, adding depth and texture to the object. Each view of the sculpture, each angle, reveals a new perspective, a new dimension to the poetic journey it embodies.

JC RUGGIRELLO – FR Born in 1959 in Tunis, Tunisia. Lives and works in Paris

With Feux follets 3 and 5 (2021), Jean-Claude Ruggirello continues his exploration of ephemeral and elusive forms. These sculptures seem to float between materiality and disappearance, like the luminous phenomena whose names they bear. True to his approach to misappropriation and accumulation, Ruggirello plays with repetition and transformation, creating a perceptual confusion. The balance of the volumes is subtle, almost fragile, as if the work were hesitating between presence and obliteration. With a simple, precise gesture, Feux follets captures the moment, freezing it while preserving its instability, inviting the viewer into a sensitive, fleeting experience.

ELSA SAHAL - FR Born in 1975 in Bagnolet. Lives and works in Paris

With Clowness Duo 4 (2019), Elsa Sahal explores the plasticity of the body through a ceramic sculpture that is both playful and disturbing. Playing on the ambiguity of form, she hijacks the codes of representation to question gender and physicality. True to her provocative approach, she models clay with a spontaneity that defies technical virtuosity, leaving room for the unexpected and the expressive. The work, organic and sensual, evokes an unstable balance between the grotesque and the seductive. The title of Clowness Duo 4 introduces a burlesque and subversive dimension, diverting the imaginary of the clown towards a more intimate and corporeal reading. Between fragility and exuberance, Elsa Sahal uses ceramics to explore the body and its metamorphoses.

LINDA SANCHEZ – FR Born in 1983 in Thonon-les-Bains. Lives and works in Marseille

Linda Sanchez's approach is based on the exploration of time, movement and the transformation of materials. Coup sur coup (2019) illustrates this approach by combining repetition and chance, precision and chaos. Through successive strikes on tiles, the artist generates cracks that are unique but sometimes similar, creating a tension between uniformity and singularity. The process is reminiscent of a musical rhythm, with each stroke producing an unpredictable variation despite the constancy of the gesture. The fractured lines are reminiscent of abstract cartographies, where accident and mastery intertwine. Assembled with care, the tiles form a coherent whole, combining spontaneity and calculation. By letting the material express itself, Sanchez transforms a simple gesture into a complex system, questioning the relationship between control and freedom in creation.

DIDER TRENET - FR Born in Beaune in 1965. Lives and works in Trambly

With Encore un petit morceau (2014) and Une perdrix (2013), Didier Trenet plays on the ambiguity between homage and subversion. These drawings combining pen, ink wash, walnut stain and glass groisil seem to oscillate between fragility and shattering. True to his approach inspired by the XVIIᵉ and XVIIIᵉ centuries, Didier Trenet hijacks classical codes with humour and irony. Ornamentation and the word, recurring elements in his universe, are used here in a staging in which pictorial tradition comes face to face with contemporary social criticism. The works, both meticulous and free, strike a balance between mastery and casualness, between homage and derision. Through this play of contrasts, the artist questions the memory of forms and their survival in today's world, transforming each fragment into a poetic and biting reflection.

SABRINA VITALI - FR Born in 1986 in Thionville. Lives and works in Paris

Sabrina Vitali is developing a body of work in which matter becomes memory and transformation. Through a sculptural and performative approach, she questions the birth and dissolution of forms, in a dialogue between structure and surface. Blessures #2 (2024) embodies this quest for metamorphosis: glass, iron, earth, rust and other heterogeneous materials combine in a sensitive, organic composition. Each element bears the marks of time, oscillating between fragility and resistance. The work evokes a body in perpetual mutation, where wounds and scars shape a new living architecture. By blending textures, gestures and alterations, Sabrina Vitali invites us into an immersive experience, a contemplation of the cycles of creation and erosion.

VOID – BE/IT Arnaud Eeckhout born 1987, Mauro Vitturini born 1985. Live and work in Brussels, Belgium

The VOID duo transforms sound into sculptural matter, questioning the relationship between auditory and visual perception. Using an experimental approach, they explore collective memory by fusing sound traces with tangible forms. Je ne produirai plus d'images #2 (2024) questions our relationship with images and their persistence, transcribing the invisible into the materiality of bronze. The work is part of a reflection on the capture of reality, where sound becomes an imprint, like a sculpted archive of time and narratives. Through superimposition and erasure, VOID creates a silent presence, somewhere between disappearance and resurgence.