wrsetxdrycftvygbhkunijlko de Nicolas Guiet — Cinquième exposition personnelle — Jean Fournier Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: January 10 → February 16, 2019

Galerie Jean Fournier is pleased to be presenting wrsetxdrycftvygbhkunijlko, Nicolas Guiet’s fifth solo exhibition.

Guiet’s sculpture is all about situational ambiguities. Fuelled by the aggressive coloration of their mass-media sources, his chromatically forceful works fluctuate between near-abstraction and a possible figuration. Their titles embody an urge to name, but without suggesting any meaning: thus the work becomes a kind of window onto potential subjectivities other than that of the artist. The placement of the works — sometimes in corners, interstices, grooves cut into a wall, and other nooks and crannies — sets up an interspace: “Whether strictly geometrical in nature or overtly organic in their approach, Nicolas Guiet’s works maintain a similarly ambiguous relationship with representation.” This ambiguity leaves the viewer free to speculate and interpret.

Nicolas Guiet, Zinef, 2019 Acrylic sur elastane frabric on base frame — Variable dimensions © Alberto Ricci / Courtesy of Nicolas Guiet & Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris.

For just over ten years now Guiet has been installing site-specific pieces in public spaces: skejerfh on the Saint-­‐Mexme collegiate church in Chinon (2011); tfygukhjlk on the Maison de l’Eclusier in Maubeuge (2015); and the very recent sclspkb on the Hôtel de la Monnaie in Figeac for the 2018 edition of the IN SITU Occitania/Pyrenees Heritage and Contemporary Art Trail. Ranging from the discreetly disruptive detail of ajcusc (2010) to the invasiveness of yiproéjuomtfup (2012), these works are systematically marked by a close, ongoing relationship with their setting, sustained by an interwoven reciprocity between site, installation and viewer. And in the wake of ihugyfjhdgf (2016) at Artspace Boan in Seoul in 2017, Guiet has given a fresh impetus to drawing in his creative process.

This new exhibition revolves around three monumental works indicative of the artist’s current lines of exploration: the graphically “tubular” ihugyfjhdgf takes the form of a giant drawing; dnchkl (2018) — exhibited at the Printemps Haussmann store in Paris last year — brings Plato principle of solids to bear on volumes in unstable equilibrium; and all over, on show for the first time, is a wall installation comprising several modules.

The monograph published to coincide with the exhibition includes an essay by Marion Delage de Luget, professor of the history and semiology of art, covering ten years of Guiet’s work, with an emphasis on his site-specific installations and his monumental works in France and abroad. Edition of 800: 20€.