Guillaume Leblon
January 24 – March 27, 2004
Frac Bourgogne
Opening: Friday, January 23, 6 pm
Frac Bourgogne
49 rue de Longvic
F21000 Dijon, France
Phone + 33 (0) 3 80 6718 18
Fax. + 33 (0) 3 80 66 33 29
infos@frac-bourgogne.org
www.frac-bourgogne.org
Free guided visits: Saturday, January 31 at 3 pm at the Frac
Conference : Tuesday, February 10 at 6:30 pm at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (3 rue Michelet 21000 Dijon) free entry.
Guillaume Leblon (born 1971) makes films, installations and interior objects which transform the function and perception of space. After finishing the Beaux Arts School of Lyons in 1997 he continued studies at the Rijksakademie of Amsterdam, and today exhibits regularly throughout Europe. He belongs to the generation of artists who believe that art is neither a representation of the world nor of one’s knowledge, but rather an extension of the real in all its possibilities. In this case Guillaume Leblon inhabits the Frac exhibition space, in other words he animates it with images much the way a person is “inhabited” by them. The title “Azimut”, an astronomic term, refers to spatial positioning in relation to the horizon. This project also deals with the presence of atmospheric phenomena: shifting courses of air or smoke, magnetic changes or changes in light, fleeting phenomena which appear in Nature as surreptitiously as the images comprised in the group of works, some already existing and others made specifically for this exhibition.
In each of his shows, Guillaume Leblon sees the works (sculptures, films, photographs) as individual clues to understanding a situation that oscillates between fiction and reality without either one being distinguishable. The simple, architecturally stylized forms, the colored surfaces as well as the films and photos refer to a domestic space with no particular features. Mur Barasti 2004 is one example; extending between two walls, it is based on a roof conceived by Egyptian architect, Hassan Fathy. The viewer, hesitating between an apparently familiar world and one which escapes any immediate perception of it, acquires a feeling that Freud calls ‘strange anxiety’. The rolled carpet placed in the middle of the room (Volume d’interieur 2004) signals not only a change that is occurring, a transformation, but a former state of the exhibition space as well. Nothing explains the presence of this object which, although noticeable, poses an enigma. Consequently, its questionable nature slowly occupies the full consciousness of the viewer. Bleu- nuit is based on the same principle. Its common advertising function is replaced by a saturated monochrome support used for the projections.
Guillaume Leblon’s proposals put the interior and exterior spatial relations of the exhibition into play. For example he has made a hole in the outer wall of the Frac as if to allow a neighboring dog to burst into the fictional exhibition space, thus involving the real even though it is absent. This does not have to do with interpreting reality or creating another one, but rather grasping the different dimensions which exist between the visible and the invisible, the real image and the mental space, what is probable or pure chance, what we know of a certain phenomenon and the reaction it provokes. In the film produced for this show, lightening strikes at night over a house while mist seeps through one of the walls of the exhibition (qi, 2003). “These images reveal the relationship between the presence or absence of things and occurrences, between their appearance and disappearance.” (Marianne Lanavere, excerpt from the forthcoming Frac Burgundy catalogue).
Guillaume Leblon constructs an elastic reality by juxtaposing different dimensional scales in the same space and all the while allowing almost narrative links to connect one work with another. This way, the viewer will perceive certain works on a one-to-one scale and simultaneously feel diminished, if not totally lost scale-wise, when confronted with others.
Time, like space or the interior realm, is a participating element in this situation. The artist has purposefully chosen to vary the lighting in the room in order to project the film. Its perpetual, rhythmic motion of the light punctuates the whole exhibition. Also relating to time are two black boxes which tally the work process. Selected traces of the actual fabrication of the exhibition are placed inside, and again, only a few clues allow an understanding of this uncommon proposal for the exhibition.
On the whole, Guillaume Leblon’s work attempts to contract and dilate the spatial and temporal aspects of the exhibition, and at the same time to approach the reality it proposes.
A monograph related to this show including texts by Marianne Lanavere and Eva Gonzalez-Sancho will soon be available. For further information, contact the archivist, Karine Serafin.
We wish to thank the enterprises Doras and Knauf Est for their kind contribution to this exhibition,
This exhibition was made possible through the support of the Minister of Culture (DRAC: Regional Direction of Cultural Affairs of Burgundy) and the General Council of the Cote d’Or.