TURN OVER
Boris Chouvellon
Opening : Saturday, January 9 – 2016 – 12am to 8pm
Exhibition : January 9- March 11, 2016
Boris Chouvellon
Opening : Saturday, January 9, 2016 – 12 am to 8pm
Exhibition : January, 9 – February 20, 2016
Boris Chouvellon travels in border spaces, in peripheral areas of our contemporary world. He records their condition and tries to reproduce a representation of the modern ruin to which become appended agricultural, industrial, commercial, as well as forgotten, abandoned construction areas. For his installations and sculptures, often monumental and site specific, he lifts objects, materials and shapes from the real world and transforms them into obsolete, fragile, poetic, dream-like structures.
A the heart of his first solo exhibit at Galerie Virginie Louvet, the artist sets an oversized, time-worn hamster wheel made of reinforced concrete, inside of which hang two ordinary, everyday domestic items: a child’s stroller and a lawnmower, petrified under a layer of concrete.
Boris Chouvellon customarily makes up models of his monumental sculptures, generally after the creation of the full-size version. A few of those are shown here, set on low black and white marble tables, producing a striking contrast between the precious nature of the support and the poverty of the objects shown. The show also includes a new series of “adulterated” pieces and the video Primaire, secondaire, tertiaire.
The title, Turn over, refers on the one hand to the predominant theme of the exhibit: the notion of revolving motion, even though it is either frozen in the immobility of the sculptures, or derided in the video in which the artist is endlessly attempting to catch hubcaps thrown by an individual out of the frame, while standing awkwardly on a pile of tires, a reference to the myth of Sisyphus, a symbol, according to Albert Camus, of the absurdity of existence.
And the title refers, on the other hand, to a common practice in the modern professional realm dominated by capitalism. The expression “turn over”, beyond its economic implication, is also a metaphoric evocation of the vanity and frailty of human existence.
“The artist mocks the absurdities imposed by an perpetually dysfunctional system in which production rules our lives. He points out the ordinary, banal cruelty, so pervasive we no longer see it. His approach reveals an ontological anguish, a desire to resist by making up, with the strength of the builder and the nimbleness of the rambler, ruins by anticipation.” (Excerpt from the catalogue Voyageurs, Révélations, Emerige 2014.
Boris Chouvellon (born in 1980) graduated from the École Supérieure de Beaux-Arts in Marseille and the Villa Arson in Nice. He has participated in numerous exhibits in France and abroad. In 2011, the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Marseille [mac] presented his solo show Running on Empty, supplemented with a catalogue. In 2014 he was a finalist of the Révélations Emerige and, in October 2015, was chosen by les amis de la maison rouge to conceive an installation for the patio of the mr in the summer of 2016.
Maya Sachweh, curator of the exhibition.
Download here the press release
Boris CHOUVELLON
Born in 1980 in Paris. Lives and works in Paris, France.
SOLO SHOWS
2016 Upcoming show (january), Galerie Virginie Louvet, Paris, France
2011 Running on empty, MAC, Marseille, France
Infinita Riviera, Macumba night club, ateliers Spada, Nice, France
Petites Victoires, petites morts, Fondation Vacances bleues, Hôtel Royal, Nice, France
2010 Magic World, Zurich, Switzerland
Art-o-rama, show-room, Marseille, France
2009 Redessiner le monde, Random Gallery (interface galerie Air de Paris et Praz-Delavallade), commissariat Yves Brochard, Paris, France
2008 Les petites illusions, Buyself, Marseille, France
GROUP SHOWS
2015 Curtin University, Perth, Australia
La Confidentielle du YIA, la GAD, Bastille Design Center, Paris, France
60ème Salon de Montrouge, Montrouge, France
2014 Monument, FRAC Basse-Normandie, Caen, France
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Calais, Calais, France
The Sainsbury Center for the Visual Arts, Norwich, United Kigdom
Mari tra le mura, commissariat Musée, Fondation Pino Pascal, Polignano a mare, Italy
Les os des pierres se ressoudent plus vite que les nôtres, La Compagnie, lieu de création, Marseille, France
Renkontigo, Parc de la Villa Communale, Trani, Italy
Nuit Européenne des Musées, Centre d’art Passerelle, Brest, France
Lettre C, Galerie Eva Meyer, Paris, France
Voyageurs, Révélations Emerige, commissariat Gaël Charbau, Villa Emerige, Paris, France
2013 Bon travail, Argos centre for art and media, Bruxelles, Belgium
Filmschau Großregion / La Grande Région en Images, KuBa, Saarbrücken, Germany
Open studio, Montmartre contemporain, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France
Festival des Arts Éphémères, 5th edition, Parc de Maison Blanche, Marseille, France
Hortillonage, Art, ville et paysages, Maison de la Culture d’Amiens, France
Art, cities & landscape / Projet Interreg, King’s Lynn, United Kingdom
Loft Miramarmi, Vicenza, Italy
Cinéma de la nouvelle lune, projection dans le jardin de la Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France
Nuit Résonance, proposition de documents d’artiste, 12ème Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, France
2012 Quatre, art contemporain et paysage, french-italia programm in the Briançonnais, France
Hortillonage, art, ville et paysage, Maison de la Culture d’Amiens, France, commissariat d’Hubert Besacier, Amiens, France
Se souvenir de la mer, Domaine départemental du château d’Avignon, Avignon, France
2011 Réactives, Deux Angles, Flers, France
Effervescence, commissariat Michel Nuridsany, Centre culturel français, Hanoï, Vietnam
2010 Performances, Centre Culturel Les Chiroux, Liège, Belgique
Paysages chavirés, Voyons voir, Château Grand Boise, Trets, France
Festival des Arts Éphémères, 2ème edition, commissariat Lyse Madar et Thierry Ollat, Maison Blanche, Marseille, France
Upon first refraction, commissariat Mia Nielsen and Powell MacDougall, The Drake Hotel,Toronto,Canada
2009 Parking lot dahlias, commissariat Martine Robin, Château de Servières, Ateliers d’artistes de la ville de Marseille, France
agYU presents Buy-self, Toronto International Art Fair, Toronto, Canada
Ex-Voto, Charpentiers de la Corse, Piedigriggio, Corsica, France
Zapping-Unit, Mac-Val, Vitry Sur Seine, France
Festival Bandits-Mages, (installation vidéo) Bourges, France
Salon de Montrouge, curated by Stéphane Corréard, Sandra Cattini, text by Patrice Joly, Montrouge, France
2007 Pinède légende, curated by Anita Molinero, La Compagnie, Marseille, France
2006 Babel, Espace Public, Luzern, Swizerland
Sculpturocratie, curated by Anita Molinero et Joël Yvon, Red District et RLBQ, Marseille, France
2005 Mars au musée, Galerie de l’école, Villa Arson, Nice, France
2004 Errer la nuit, Appartements privés, Nice, France
EDUCATION
2009 DNSEP Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Marseille, France
2008 DNAP Villa Arson, Nice, France
RESIDENCIES
2015 Usine Utopik, Centre de Création Contemporaine, Tessy-sur-Vire, France
2014 SACI Mari tra le mura, Fondation Pino Pascali, Polignano a Mare, Rutigliano, Italy
2012/2014 Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France
2011 Deux Angles, Flers, France`
2010 Le 75, Bruxelles, Belgique
Château Grand Boise, Trets, France
2008/2010 Ateliers d’artiste de la Ville, Marseille, France
2009 The Drake, Canada
Munstrasse 10, Berlin Ador, Germany
2006 HGK, Luzern, Switzerland
GRANTS AND AWARDS
2015 Laureate, Prix des Amis de la Maison Rouge, Paris, France
2013 Finalist 1%, Collège Jean Jaurès, La Ciotat, France
2011 Aide à l’installation Drac PACA, France
2009 Aide individuelle à la création DRAC Paca, France
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
MAC, Musée d’art contemporain, Marseille
FCAC, Fonds communal d’art contemporain, Marseille, France
Private collections in France and abroad
PUBLICATION/ PRESS
2014 Entretien AMA, En cassant les images, je crée des ruines, Art Media Agency
Exhibition catalogue Voyageurs, Révélations Emerige, curated by Gaël Charbau
2013 Edouard Launet, L’art et la jachère, Libération, (19/06/2013)
Christophe Levent, Un musé dans les potagers, Le Parisien et Aujourd’hui en France (16/07/2013)
2012 Sylvie Coellier, Rock, caravan, mirror, (juin 2012).
France Culture, «La Vignette» par Aude Lavigne, 18/07/2012
2011 Thierry Ollat, Deceptive appearance ? ; Christine Poullain
Les métaphores de Boris ; Lise Guéhenneux, Vertiges de la traversée, Catalogue Running on empty, [mac] musée d’art contemporain de Marseille.
Lise Guéhenneux, Au coeur des non-lieux urbains, l’Humanité (26/10/2011)
Céline Ghisleri, Béton art né, Ventilo (25/10/2011)
Marie-Eve Barbier, Les doutes en béton de Boris Chouvellon, journal La Provence (20/10/2011)
Sandro Piscopo-Reguieg, Poétique de la zone, revue 8ème art, ≠ 16
Stéphane Corréard, Boris Chouvellon sculpteur de chevalet, catalogue Réactif 3
2010 Lise Guéhenneux, Festival des Arts Éphémères, 2ème édition.
Karim Grandi-Baupain, journal Ventilo
Bernard Muntaner, Les couleurs de l’absurde et de la dérision, journal sous-officiel.
Emmanuel LOI, Paysages chavirés, journal sous-officiel
2009 Patrice Joly, Sisyphe en herbe, catalogue Salon de Montrouge
2008 Lise Guéhenneux, Les petites illusions
Karim Grandi-Baupain, journal de Mécènes du Sud
Download here his CV
