OH NON !

Robert Watts, New Light on West Africa (Baoulé), 1976
Bertrand Lavier, Exposition personnelle à la galerie Yvon Lambert, 2008

Pour Robert Watts :

New Light on West Africa was the subject of an eponymous 1976 solo exhibition at René Block Gallery in New York. Subsequently exhibited at museums and galleries in Europe, and the United States, as well as at the 1990 Sydney Biennale, it is among the artist’s most significant works.
The series was created from reproductions of important nineteenth-century African tribal objects that Watts had cast and electroplated in silver or chrome. These works exemplify investigations in light, reflective surfaces, and casting that Watts began in the early 1960s. They uncannily foreshadow the postmodern appropriations of Allan McCollum and Sherrie Levine, and the stainless-steel sculpture of Jeff Koons. (Press release)

Pour Bertrand Lavier :

Ibo, 2008, questions the status of the original and the process of cultural exchanges. The benchmarks for this piece are traditional votive statuettes from Niger; they are objects of everyday use in Africa and became considered as
artworks only through occidental art history.
Bertrand Lavier made a series of 5 original statues of chrome bronze after the African model. He plays with codes specific to occidental sculpture by introducing an outside element into it. The seriality of this production, the change in material and the scenography of the exhibition enable the transformation of a traditional African statuette into a work of art. There is some ambiguity in this newly acquired status though. The artist mingles identities and categories to give the viewer an unsettling yet pleasant experience. (Press release)