Benoît Maire

On affection

Barcelona
Mar 18 - Apr 28, 2017

Text
Installation
Selected Works

NoguerasBlanchard is pleased to announce the third iteration of On Affection, a group exhibition extended in time in the gallery’s space in L´Hospitalet focusing on performative practices that emphasize bodily experience and its ability to affect and be affected. Over the period of one season, participating artists are: Mercedes Azpilicueta, Fermin Jimenez Landa, Benoît Maire, Jacopo Miliani, Bruce Nauman, Christodoulos Panayiotou and Cally Spooner.

What we call performance these days is not the same as it was in its beginning. The practice has gone through many changes across the years while the supremacy of the object has been questioned. What hasn´t changed through the past years is the affective potential of performative practices upon audiences. Affection is the process whereby affect – in the Deleuzian sense – is transmitted between bodies and there is no secure distinction between the ‘individual’ and the ‘environment’. In short, Affect cannot be fully realised in language but only through the body grammar.

On this occasion, French artist Benoît Maire presents a new work, Castling Pieces, Piece 1 to 14 (2017). Taking as its’ starting point the installation Letre created for La Verrière (Brussels) this work is an archipelago of sculptural situations in which performances activate relations between the objects on site. Made of what he describes as «decided objects» and «waste» – these two terms shape his work and refer to the materials transformed by the artist into sculptural named objects, and also connect to the residue from decisions made on certain objects, which are thus «undecided» and unnamed. As in previous works, the artist pinpoints a question that governs his practice: categorization of objects (in the show such categories are: hidden, either/or forgotten, decided objects, disaster, those, natural, man-made, amongst others). This installation is formed by more than 70 elements presented on a display wooden board that can all be combined into 14 pieces to be castled on the site via performances.

During the course of the show the objects are shifted following a score that is diffused on loop on a flat screen. In this way, “castling” – a move in chess to protect the King – draws on the idea of affection as expressed through objects (rather than bodily affection); the pieces through castling are expressive of bodily action as rooted in the capacity to be affected.

Benoît Maire was born in Pessac, France, in 1978 and lives and works in Bordeaux.

With special thanks to Galerie Thomas Bernard, Paris; Meessen De Clercq, Brussels; joségarcía, México DF; and Croy Nielsen, Vienna.

Installation

Selected Works

Fermín Jiménez Landa
Bamboleo de Chandler

2017

C-Print (5 frames)

51 x 51 cm (20 ³⁄₃₂ x 20 ³⁄₃₂ inches)

Fermín Jiménez Landa
Untitled

2017

Pencil on canvas

15 x 20 cm (5 ²⁹⁄₃₂ x 7 ⁷⁄₈ inches)

Fermín Jiménez Landa
Untitled

2017

Pencil on canvas

15 x 20 cm (5 ²⁹⁄₃₂ x 7 ⁷⁄₈ inches)

Fermín Jiménez Landa
Study for Bamboleo de Chandler

2017

Collage on paper

41.5 x 31 cm (16 ¹¹⁄₃₂ x 12 ³⁄₁₆ inches)

Mercedes Azpilicueta
Visuales mnemonicas lll

2017

Linen, cotton yarn and organza silk

300 x 130 cm (118 ¹⁄₈ x 51 ³⁄₁₆ inches)

Mercedes Azpilicueta
Visuales mnemonicas lV

2017

Linen, cotton yarn and organza silk

300 x 130 cm (118 ¹⁄₈ x 51 ³⁄₁₆ inches)