Nature morte
At first glance, these chairs beneath a green canvas seem to be readymades, ordinary objects appropriated from their initial function according to the concept coined by Marcel Duchamp. However, they are near perfect casts that Etienne Bossut has made in self-coloured polyester, his favourite medium. What difference is there between these casts and their models—the Panton Chair and the Grosfillex chair, true design icons? “It is an artistic image of the chair,” explains Bossut. “If you sit on it, you are sitting on a cast, but it was never a chair, and it can’t become one again.” The artist adds his mark to these casts by inscribing the date of manufacture and his signature in the resin while still fresh. Etienne Bossut proceeds here to a distanced imitation which displaces and transforms the original subject, but through moulding, he indicates that what we are looking at is not the original object—a chair—but its image, its history, that of our society and its habits.
Text written by Marianne Tricoire as part of the partnership between the École du Louvre and Lafayette Anticipations – Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin.
Exhibitions
Maison Populaire, Montreuil (France)
from 07 Jan to 11 Apr 2009
La Galerie des Galeries, Paris (France)
from 01 Oct to 29 Oct 2005