Romaric Tisserand, Alban Le Henry — MoMO galerie x alban le henry = mfc2 — Michèle didier Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: March 21 → April 23, 2014

This is the second edition of mfc-michèle didier’s new exhibition concept: mfc2, again based on the idea of invitation. After La Serre and La Ville Rayée, two external collaborators will once again invest the space of the Paris gallery.

mfc1 = an artist, Romaric Tisserand, under the guise of MoMO galerie, proposes a totally new work, entitled 3360 TIMES (from M to O), a series of 3360 color combinations arranged similarly as the famous LOVE by Robert Indiana. Three colors are randomly interchanged and chosen from an arbitrary selection of sixteen colors, revealing four letters, M O M O.

mfc2 = a designer, Alban Le Henry, creates here a storage space, updating stack, a work that will display almost all of mfc-michèle didier’s publications. The question here for Alban Le Henry is to take an interest in the productions containers, — box, slipcase or cover,— and show in a domestic exhibition works of art that we usually see closed — books and boxes.

A common idea connects both projects: the unity that is used as a module to be multiplied and combined. In Romaric Tisserand’s case, the unity is the one created by the color. As for Alban Le Henry, the unity in his installations arises from the stacking of the storage units.

mfc1 = MoMO galerie

3360 TIMES (from M to O)

NO MORE PHOTOGRAPHY, NO MORE PAINTING, JUST THOUSANDS OF IMAGES. It’s the state and the topography of image that is approached, questioned and manipulated by the work 3360 TIMES (from M to O), in it most elementary form, i.e. the digital archive file.

3360 TIMES (from M to O) consists of four letters, M O M O, graphically reminding us LOVE by Robert Indiana. Based on the idea of replica and parody, this fundamentally mechanical artwork, gathers all the possible combinations and permutations of 16 colors, chosen arbitrarily from the Kodak chart, and applied to the letter matrix. Thanks to this protocol, 3360 combinations are generated and organized randomly and digitally in 672 sets of 5 MOMO, 1120 sets of 3 MOMO and 3360 single MOMO.

3360 TIMES (from M to O) questions the status of the artist, an archivist of present time, compiler and organizer, who doesn’t want to act as a demiurge, but as a machine, entrusting to math and calculus the task of accomplishing the artistic gesture.

These sets of multiple or solo images, — in total 5152 unique multiples — are supposed to be printed on a framed canvas. The purchaser is invited to take part in the production process, as he has the choice to produce the work physically, reminding of Lawrence Weiner’s declaration of intent in Statements in 1968. Handed over digitally in a PDF file, the work has possibility to be activated over and over again, without any limit.

3360 TIMES (from M to O) distinctly raises the question of the la reproducibility and multiplicity of art, redefining its notion of originality and materiality.

Since its conception, LOVE by Robert Indiana paradoxally announces its mortal counterpart, AIDS by General Idea, while VISA by Mircea Cantor precedes MOMO’s 3360 TIMES (from M to O).

Brotherly tribute or destruction of the icon through absorption, the masterwork henceforth only exists thanks to its capacity to be reproduced. It enforces the idea that paintings, sculptures, writing, drawing, or performances are but images that have their own destiny. The consecration of the multitude…

OF COLOR.

— Romaric Tisserand

mfc2 = Alban Le Henry

books and boxes

_ books and boxes _ consists of an installation built with the storage unit called stack.

To show a part of the publisher’s collection of publications may seem obvious.

Outside the gallery — a space dedicated to the unfolding of the artists’ books and boxes — the content of a production is implied, under a closed casing or jacket. In the domestic sphere, the art works are kept stored until their owners choose to open them, read them and share them with others. In this context, the artworks coexist with other objects, with their own different meaning, their own shapes.

Detach the artworks from their content, while holding onto their status of stored artworks; then only remains the casing: books and boxes.

As the sizes of all the productions are variable, the choice of the storage unit stack seemed appropriate. stack is a storage unit that can be stacked freely, without limit. The unit consists of a starting element and an ending element. There are three types of finish, that are displayed on the preparatory drawings.

Through a simple assembling system, stack can extend or contract. Subsequently, stack can be adapted to the number of objects that have to be stored, as to the space available in the habitat.