The ace of diversion
About the work of Pascale Marthine Tayou, to be seen in Reims (51) in the collective exhibition “Conversations with nature” at Ruinart from October 5, but also at the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire (41) until October 27.
I love visiting artists’ studios… If you are also inspired, I will spoil you with the one that the journalist Elisabeth Couturier made of Pascale Marthine Tayou’s, which she reports on in the September issue of Connaissance des arts. When you have already seen her Totems in crystal, her Petits Riens multicolores, her Routes du paradis in whitewashed paving stones, her farandoles of calabashes or her installations of plastic bags, you can well imagine that the studio of this contemporary artist, born in Cameroon in 1966, must be quite phenomenal. But here the imaginary is nothing compared to reality!
Today, Pascale Marthine Tayou lives and works in both Ghent and Yaoundé. It was in Belgium that Connaissance des arts went to meet him. And as Elisabeth Couturier writes from the outset, “we hesitate to call the place where Pascale Marthine Tayou receives us in Ghent, the city where he has lived for over twenty years, a “studio”. At first glance, it looks like an Ikea warehouse, a flea market and a lost and found office all rolled into one!” That’s because it takes space to accumulate the incredible quantity of disparate things that he collects in all the countries he travels through in order to “make his soup”, he explains laughingly to the journalist when talking about his works of art for sale. Which art galleries are snapping up. Because since the beginning of the 1990s and his participation in Documenta 11 (2002) in Kassel and the Venice Biennale (2005 and 2009), Pascale Marthine Tayou has been known to such a large international audience that he has been driving the contemporary art market crazy. He never stops traveling the world and installing monumental, flashing, always colorful… and always political works everywhere. His artistic work is characterized by its variability, not being limited to a medium or a theme.
It is therefore understandable that in the six thousand square meters of the former steelworks that serves as her studio, there are piled up "crates containing works in transit between two museums, works from different periods and various disparate elements, such as wire figurines, wicker baskets, gourds, colored paving stones, her own paintings, photos and recent sculptures, or even fabrics placed here and there. The dust covers certain places with a light veil, more cluttered than others. We can imagine the person in charge of cleaning trembling at the very idea of emptying the wastepaper basket!"
From the beginning of her career, Pascale Marthine Tayou added an "e" to her first and second names to give them a feminine consonance, thus ironically distancing herself from the importance of artistic paternity and masculine/feminine attributions. “His desire to cross borders, to disrupt aesthetic categories and cultural references is matched only by his genius for remarkable associations,” writes the journalist from the art magazine, visibly completely charmed. We understand her. In addition to being talented, to having a sort of absolute eye capable of perceiving the work of art that will hit the mark in the assembly of a shapeless bric-a-brac, the guy is generous and full of humor. Like when he says that he collects small businesses. “When I am in Africa, I sometimes buy baskets filled with everyday objects (kleenex, chewing gum, ballpoint pens, plastic bags, etc.) carried on the heads of women or teenagers who walk all day. I buy the entire stock. Amazement! Panic! At first they think I am a sorcerer who wants to buy their soul. And then their eyes shine: they have won an unexpected sum in a few minutes!” It’s my way of giving back a little bit of what I was given, because I was very lucky.”
Although it is closely linked to the idea of travelling and getting in touch with what is other than oneself, Tayou’s work is not only a mediator between cultures, or between man and nature: it is made up of social, cultural or political constructions. The objects, sculptures, installations, drawings and videos produced by Tayou have a recurring common point: they evoke an individual who travels around the world and explores the question of the global village. It is in this context that Tayou negotiates his African origins and the expectations linked to them. “Gifted at subtly addressing anxiety-provoking issues such as the ecological crisis, globalization or postcolonial questions, Tayou adds to the beauty of forms the necessary humor and poetry to capture attention,” notes Elisabeth Couturier. “His hanging branches, whose leaves he replaces with brightly colored plastic bags or disposable water bottles, the same ones that pollute rivers and seas, invite an aerial awareness. And his palaver trees, made with long vines of paper shredded by shredders, show how oral exchanges take precedence over the weight of administrative documents that stifle speech. Without dwelling on it, he evokes the forced Christianization of Africa with a Stations of the Cross composed of crucifixes made of statues of settlers, and underlines the dark hours of the slave ships with pieces of large black chains placed on the ground. His world maps of gift packages, his illuminated signs displaying the word “open” in all languages, or his labyrinths made of multiple national flags, speak of the universal human condition, his main concern. »
Leaving this unusual studio, one inevitably thinks of the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui, who also uses recycled materials and found objects to create monumental works exploring colonial history, consumption and globalization. But also of Yinka Shonibare, the British artist of Nigerian origin who, like Tayou, is interested in postcolonial and identity issues by using materials loaded with cultural symbolism, such as wax (African fabric), to question cultural hybridity. Also of Boris Nzebo, the Cameroonian artist who explores the themes of urban African identity and the influence of popular culture. Their practices share a common sensibility that is both visual and political, although Tayou is more rooted in conceptual art and installations. As for the visual artist Thomas Hirschhorn, who uses everyday objects and recycled materials to create committed installations, although he is only Swiss of Swiss origin, he nevertheless shares with Tayou an interest in the overload of objects and the deconstruction of cultural meanings, with a strong political commitment.
Article written by Valibri en Roulotte