Histoires/(Hi)stories...
Gérard Mermoz
Issue 46 Spring 2006
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Histoires/(Hi)stories... * stages a series of impossible situations, staged with found objects from different cultures: an Etruscan bronze + a Baroque Jesus; [a bronze ('cire perdue') crucible from Africa, in the shape of a bird + a wooden pin-holder from Eastern Europe]; a wood carving from China + a XVIIIth century porcelain figure; a terracotta votive figurine from India + a Roman bronze; a toy figure of a gentleman farmer + a bronze African 'mask'; a plastic figurine of a German soldier from WWII + a Etruscan bronze; a plastic model (hand painted by a child) of Napoleon + a ceramic penguin; a porcelain figure of an XVIIIth century nobleman (the Marquis de Sade?) + a wood carving of a fertility figure from the Dogon nation...
Through the language of the fable, wrapped in humour, these deliberately anachronistic confrontations invite us to ponder over the basis of human conflicts and to consider the implications of cultural differences, from a transnational perspective, for the present and for the future.
