Venus World
At number 61, Saint Charles street, in a vast space, a place of creation and life, emerges an ovoid-shaped wooden structure. Is it a cocoon, a planet, a belly? Maybe all three ...
The envelope is divided into various lines of force which are all paths to be followed. The full composes with the void, the material with the intangible ...
From a distance, this ephemeral sculpture seems to be made from a precious, smooth wood where light is reflected. When the eye gets closer, it sees the roughness of the material, the different textures.
These fragmented and recomposed crates reveal stains, imprints of the street world. He who contained and transported food, smells, flavors.
Palimpsest of everyday life, it becomes the blank sheet of the designer. Vincent Rauel and Michel Salamero are located at the crossroads of various cultures. They quote, borrow, divert, even abuse certain references from the history of art, from mythology. The drawing gains space and is transformed into sculpture or even architecture. The palettes are assembled to offer the vision of an archetypal Venus.
Oscillation between a stylized form and an abundance of details that get bogged down, overlap to the point of generating writing. A writing made of one and the same line. The precision of the graphics is the work of a goldsmith. The hand burns the support to engrave forms forever inscribed, tattooed in the very flesh of this makeshift Venus. This is laid bare, uncovered, the envelope is structure, the skin is skeleton. This surface is irregular: it comprises separations which are at the same time bridges towards other universes of signs. The line overflows and continues on the next palette. The interstices are not cuts but in-between allowing passage. The gaze is constantly troubled, questioned.
The images that we think are obvious are just mirages. A sun becomes a breast, or perhaps the reverse ... Hair is transformed into snakes. World where eroticism cannot exist without a part of violence. The design itself is put to the test and gains other territories.
Composed by four hands, this installation is the result of a collaboration between Michel Salamero claiming to be a “handyman” and Vincent Rauel, a young plastic artist. They invite us to enter this multiple work and complete it with our own history.
Elisabeth Spettel, Philosophy of Art Doctor, 2012.