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Represented by: Labor, Mexico City

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Current and upcoming solo exhibitions

Le Musée Décapité, Sies+Höke, Düsseldorf,
Sep 3 - Sep 28 2010

On Hospitality, Labor, Mexico City, Jul 7-Aug 28 2010

About

Etienne Chambaud carries out a persistent exploration on the nature of a work of art: its relation to other works, its contexts, and the way artworks are used, (...) charged with meaning or endowed with a particular narrative.

(…)

Chambaudʼs work never functions in isolation but finds its sense or its interest in a permanent dialogue with other works. They grow mutually rich, while gradually drawing the vague contours of a constellation made of common references. They work as palimpsests, which guard the trace of a former work while proposing a new composition, thus oscillating endlessly between inescapable repetition and continuous new horizons.

The works of Etienne Chambaud donʼt deliver themselves solely through the interpretation of their form, but require recourse to an additional element, such as their titles or captions, to be circumscribed. He creates a discomforting situation by confronting the spectator with an enigmatic and seemingly mute object.

However, the hermetic nature of the work does not lean on elitism, but rather creates a certain equality between its spectators.

(…)

Raphaël Brunel

Excerpts from Etienne Chambaud, in Les Cahiers de la Création Contemporaine, Cahier d'été #2, 2009. Translated from the French.

The Cut, Part I and Part II

A glass cube holds a cut tulip upside-down left to fade during the course of the exhibition.
A new tulip replaces the previous one each time the work is exhibited.

A one time performed public lecture ends up with the artist putting his notes in his
suit-jacket's pocket and hanging it on a hook in the exhibition space.

The Cut, Part I
Glass, wild tulip
90 x 90 x 100 cm
2009

The Cut, Part II, Enough Incomplete Thoughts on the Complete Cut to fill up a Pocket
Notes on a given lecture, suit-jacket, hook
70 x 20 x 5 cm
2009

Exhibition View, Labor, Labor, Mexico City, 2009

Appareil Cyclopéen

A set of colorful plexiglas pieces and notched stones is given to a child to construct
the work based on architectural structures that either metaphorize dialogue or could
function as its stage.

Left: Appareil Cyclopéen (La Grotte)
Right: Appareil Cyclopéen (Le Pont)
(Cyclopean Masonry (The Cave), Cyclopean Masonry (The Bridge) )
Colored Pexiglas and notched stones
Variable dimensions
2009

Exhibition view, Mais où est donc Ornicar ? , Espace Blank, Paris, June-September 2009

Medium

Medium is a journal dedicated to dialogues with the dead.
For each issue, one person is invited to write to another person who has passed away.

Medium has no visual identity and is distributed as inserts within various magazines and journals.

www.medium.li

« Atlas, »

A series of atlases from different periods and parts of the world have been
modified by cutting holes into their pages.



« Atlas, »
International Standard Atlas of the World, 1947
53 x 35 cm
2008

Le Présent (Répétitions)

With Benoît Maire

A conversation recorded by the artists in the exhibition space before the
opening is repeated during the show by actors playing the roles of the
artists at different ages of life.

Le Présent (Répétitions)
(The Present (Repetitions))
Script for 2 actors, performance
2009

Portraits of the actors, Un Nouveau Festival, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Oct-Nov 2009
With Tanguy Chevillard and Jacques Mathieu in the role of Etienne Chambaud ;
Basile Le Pelletier du Clary and Louis Félicien Carnir in the role of Benoît Maire.

L'Electricité, Exclusion de la Tautologie n°2

A lamp lights up its own socket.

From a series of tautologies that either exclude themselves from
the realm of tautologies or are, as tautologies, excluded from the
world.

L’Électricité, Exclusion de la Tautologie n°2
(The Electricity, Exclusion of Tautology #2)
Restored aluminium lamp
Approx. height 100 cm
2007

Exhibition View, The Obstacle is Tautology, Tulips&Roses, Vilnius, 2009

Sans Titre (Les Titres et leur Objet)

A neon sign, whose shape hesitates between an exploded geometrical
form and a letter, is given a different title each day it is exhibited.
A framed calendar shows the titles for the duration of the exhibition.

Sans titre (Les Titres et leur Objet)
(Untitled (The Titles and their Object) )
Neon tubes, wood panel and framed calendar
44 x 51cm (frame), approx. 110 x 160 cm (neon)
2008

Exhibition view, A Brief History of the Twentieth Century, Sassa Trülzsch, Berlin,
January 2009

Project for a Gingerbread Playground

A gingerbread model of the monkey cage once used as the set for
Le Troupeau du Dehors / The Outside Herd was made by memory and
eaten shortly after.

www.letroupeaududehorstheoutsideherd.org

Project for a Gringerbread Playground
Gingerbread, icing sugar, thread
2006

Les Coloristes Coloriées

A series of photographs of film colorization workshops from 1905-1925 have been
silkscreened on canvas. The faces and hands of the colorists have been colored
with acrylic paint.

Les Coloristes Coloriées
(The Colored Colorists)
Silkscreen and acrylic paint on canvas
150 x 110 cm (Les Coloristes Coloriées I) ; 88 x 110 cm
and 130 x 110 cm (Les Coloristes Coloriées II) ; 105 x 110 cm (Les Coloristes Coloriées III).
2008-2009

Exhibition view, Color Suite, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, February 2009