Laura Lamiel: Les yeux de W

Les yeux de W takes the viewer’s body and mind on an inner journey through a succession of rooms, cells, passages and cavities, through which one roams and crosses like the recesses of a memory that is sometimes vivid, sometimes buried, at times radiant, now gloomy. In this exhibition, the details act like the labyrinthine synapses of an infinite brain in which spaces fit squarely inside one another, getting divided, reflected and wrapped.

For 40 years, Laura Lamiel has been creating seemingly minimalistic abstract landscapes that thwart our perception of reality in every possible way. In the title of the exhibition, the letter W’s dual and symmetrical structure indicates one way of approaching the journey. By combining quirky superimpositions, symmetries and plays of mirrors, Laura Lamiel’s sculptures, installations, photographs and drawings disrupt our perspective while causing new images to emerge. In a reality that seems to be constantly slipping away, Laura Lamiel’s work keeps the perspective tense and diffracts perception into the depths of an inner experience.

The artist constructs each of her works with an unparalleled meticulousness, combining heterogeneous materials—smooth and gritty, hot and cold. White enamelled steel, plexiglas and neon are combined with varnished wood, copper, incense granules, but also with fabric, paper and cotton.

For Les yeux de W, Laura Lamiel works by substracting materials and objects, but also by accumulating them. The vast volumes in the art centre’s first room contrast with a sculpture on the ground, an immense floor dug out and incised in certain places, where hidden worlds and underground forms appear.

Furthermore, the exhibition presents cells, structures at the scale of a body. These are work and thought spaces in which the artist has placed stripped-down forms, but also archives, gloves and tissues that seem to have travelled through time, their worn-out appearance thwarting the calm, silent organization of the works.

Curator: Marie Cozette

About the artist
Laura Lamiel was born in 1948. She lives and works in Paris. She is represented by Marcelle Alix - Paris.

Her work has been shown in many solo exhibitions over a period of over thirty years, at such institutions as: Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona (1982), Villa Arson in Nice (1984), Le Quartier contemporary art centre in Quimper (1998), Le Crestet art centre (1999), Musée d’Art Moderne in Grenoble (2001), Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio (2006), Musée d’art moderne et contemporain in Saint-Étienne, La Galerie art centre in Noisy-le-Sec (2014), La Verrière-Hermès in Brussels (2015).

She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including at: Grand Palais in Paris (2006), Museu de Arte Moderna in São Paulo (2009), Centre Pompidou in Paris (2010), MAC / VAL museum of contemporary art in Val-de-Marne (2013), Biennale de Lyon (2015), Petit Palais in Paris, Les ateliers de Rennes contemporary art biennale (2016), Musée d’art contemporain in Lyon, and Malmö Konsthall (2018).
 

About CRAC Occitanie
Located in Sète, on the bank of Canal Royal in the heart of the city, the Centre Régional d’Art Contemporain overlooks the port and the Mediterranean. Its architecture’s exceptional volumes reflect the industrial nature of the building, which was originally a refrigerated warehouse for fish preservation. In 1997, architect Lorenzo Piqueras renovated the original building, giving it the current configuration and making it into an exceptional exhibition site, offering 1200 square metres distributed over two floors.

The CRAC is dedicated to artistic creation. It offers a programme of temporary exhibitions, publishes exhibition catalogues and artist books, and develops a dynamic cultural and educational programme for people of all kinds, through guided tours, workshops, lectures, concerts, performances and more.

The CRAC promotes local, national and international partnerships based on the principle of allying proximity to its visitors. As a place of production, research, experimentation and exhibition, the CRAC has, over a period of more than 20 years, presented over six hundred artists from the French and international art scenes.