30.06.12 – 19.08.12 Cyril le Van

Objects and Installation
“Men are born free and equal and that’s the last time they are.” As visual artist, son and grand-son of artists, he began drawing and painting at a very young age. However, a few years later he will be influenced by other artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Robert Rauschenberg for painting, Ken Loach, Bertrand Tavernier and the Dardenne brothers for movies.

Growing up in the Paris suburbs, a melting pot of contrasts, the urban architecture exacerbated feeds his thinking for over ten years, the idea that the artist should not try to magnify the daily environment but question the violence of the relationship between society and individuals.

From this, the social marginalization, economic and cultural exclusion are his areas of experimentation.

His questions are embodied in the reproduction of symbols such as mattresses as shelters for the homeless, food retailers as catering premises, laundromat as a place of health, McDonald’s Corporation as well as casual work clothing as “acronym” and as social identity marker of a population in search of reference (“brand” is the passport to social integration in a group you like) and second-hand clothing as an economical solution for clothing the poor.

These symbols are the subject of installations, usually at full size, basically made of sculptures from printed sheets, cut, assembled and then padded with polyurethane foam.

There are two levels of interpretation of his work, the first purely visual aesthetic deliberately at odds with the violence of words. The object is perfectly reproduced, close to the real he calls them “ready made MADE.” It aimed to attract the attention of the viewer. The idea is to include all the viewers and public environment and then address to the second interpretation, that\’s the questioning: “What comes (for example) an installation reproducing eight machines of a laundromat across one?”. “Who are those who use them and why.” This willingness to accompany the viewer about the artist is a social and voluntary approach, “I see, I understand, I am interested, I dialogue.”