Preciso me encontrar — (Je dois me retrouver) — Dohyang Lee Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: March 14 → April 25, 2015

“There is no object but cut shapes who make transparency. Those cut shapes I use (…) are visual borders. There is no passing of the object, maybe a passing of the vision, a chance to see out of the frame while staying inside the frame.”

Pascal Convert

I first met the work of Romain Vicari during his hanging Saudades at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris (School of Fine Arts of Paris). It was a mix of redeemed objects and interventions revealing architectural disappearances. I was very surprised by his coloured and textured propositions, his suspended gestures as if he realized in the emergency of a potential public presentation. His spontaneous compositions certainly come from his urban work where speed of execution is essential, the movements must be forceful, assured, precise and incisive. His site specific actions go over the simple act of space marking. Romain Vicari turns the grey, dark, dusty environnements into a new space organization using spray print and plastering some architectural elements. The urban fabric becomes a field experience , a shared working place open for everybody’s use.

His artistic practice grows when he develops it in his studio. The plaster not only covers the surfaces but it fills the wooden and aluminium frames. The material becomes alive and vibrant. However the approach is the same: the outside elements step into the exhibition spaces introducing construction materials. Masonry sand, used to make mortar or concrete, is spread on the floor to sculpt its rough bumps. Cork insulation pannels are turned into picture rails, pedestals and layers. The plaster is not smoothened but drips down the walls, soldering sometimes the constructions to the ground. The materials are assembled, superimposed an re-composed. They generate installations rooted to the spot, some tridimensional projections, or photographs of the artist’s field explorations. Each particular medium lost its specificity.

Preciso me encontrar, “I have to find myself” in English, roots some new gestures in the work of Romain Vicari. He redefines and occupies the space with elements of domestic furniture treated in different ways : a plastered folding screen sculpts the space, a table painted on one corner which presents a sculpture. The use of space puts emphasis on the emergence of images and volumes. The architecture of this improvised laboratory is transfigured, disfigured by the interventions where the present constructions suddenly arise on past foundations. 1:5 scale photographs of ephemeral outdoor installations realised in the Petite Ceinture de Paris feature on the gallery space’s walls. The gallery’s floor lines join the outside view lines, creating a spatio-temporal unity that links the two artistic practices of Romain Vicari. This link is accentuated by video and sound elements captured during his explorations. These displays contribute to the vitality of the exhibition space and invite to the exploration of the environments.

With the support of the French National Center for Plastic Arts (Support for the first exhibition)