Ordinary Metamorphoses
Solo exhibition
Margaux Compte-Mergier
February 17th — March 2nd, 2024
Opening Reception
February 17th, 7 pm - 10 pm
Exgirlfriend
Lankwitzerstrasse 14 12107
Berlin, DE
"What sculpture will spill over us like a jar of oil? What sculpture will spread across this floor like hair at a hairdresser? Where are your sculptures, transparent like carafes?"
With his desire to "enchant the vulgar matter" as his own language, Guillaume Apollinaire foresaw, in his lecture "La sculpture d'aujourd'hui" (1913), the multiple possibilities, infinite variations, and endless wiles of form. Beautiful intuition: with him, we are already tomorrow. And his astonishing intuitive agility undeniably accompanies the monographic exhibition of the artist Margaux Compte-Mergier.
Conceived as an art installation, a forest of sculptures according to the artist, the artwork expands by showcasing around thirty sculptures, recently created in her Berlin studio. As in any landscape - even if metaphorical - the near and the distant converge, dimensional relationships create reliefs, and each sculpture delicately layers detail and fragment. The prickling curiosity and imposing sculpture are perched on spikes like trophies: an astonishing tableau de chasse.
An arm torn off like a branch bending under the force of a strong wind; a single torso; a widowed foot; a navel that takes on the appearance of a wine glass, faces welded into double heads reminiscent of old-time carnival attractions. The entire body displays strongly an evident deconstruction. A total and almost grotesque frenzy of a familiar yet bizarre anatomy. The contortion of reality is shaped everywhere by fictions. And by frictions - since these sculptures abound with exogenous elements such as computer parts, tree bark, cleaning gloves, etc. The serendipitous exploration of the manipulation of mediums and DNA: the sculptures evoke the ever-changing versatility between humans and objects, the symbiosis of entities welding simple trash to human organs.
From these cuttings, we could evoke tales, science fiction cinema, or even the improbable definition of the increasingly complex word (and concept) of the living. The artist draws on references from the ancient statuary to the elastic bodies of Eva Hesse, as well as the polysemic nature of Bruce Nauman. Exploring the thousand transitory states of habitats, envelopes, and bodies, Margaux Compte-Mergier evokes Ovid's "Metamorphoses." But she adds, "The familiar becomes strange to us. Our metamorphoses resemble mutations; they create monsters that are nevertheless common to us and produce dirty and intriguing forms, marvelous waste." A sculpture of vestige and high vertigo.
Laurent Boudier, art critic of the French journal Télérama
(Text translated from French to English by Emilie Duranceau with edited grammar)
With special thanks to our partner
