The Franco-Argentinian artist, Pablo Reinoso, is exhibiting a dozen works at the Polygone Riviera center until October 14. “Supernature” engages the visitor while simultaneously investing a place of life, passage, and communication. Double Talk, The Thing, Vice Versa… and many others, rework social codes and overturn the established order. Meet the artist who reveals “the potential of dance in the immobile statuary,” as our late Michel Serres used to say.
Born in 1955 in Buenos Aires, he discovered art at a young age. At 6, he made chairs and raced down hills with his carts. At 13, his first sculpture was born, a sign of a vocation to come that he would never abandon. Pablo Reinoso has lived in France since leaving Argentina in 1978. This has been followed by a long career and numerous series of works, exhibited in Paris, Lyon, London, and even Japan. Fascinated by materials such as wood and steel, he stretches the rigid and softens material brutality. He creates spaghetti benches, chairs where no one can sit, and frames in disarray. Lines unfold in topological forms, evoking philosophical notions such as freedom and organic ones such as the body or plant growth. His series “The Breathables” is a “lasting parenthesis,” abandoning hardness for the lightness of air and its penetration into sails.
From June 19 to October 14, 2019, Pablo Reinoso has placed a series of seven temporary sculptures, complementing the two permanent works, at the Polygone Riviera center in Cagnes-sur-Mer. In this living space where shops and dining mix, the “Supernature” exhibition nestles into corners and the center of the walkways. At the top of the escalator, The Thing with its mysterious balance awaits you. Its spider-like appearance, protruding from the ground, intrigues with its long steel filaments. Resting on the water’s surface, Double Talk is a bench that unfolds on each side, ready to escape its condition as an object. In the manner of Gaston Bachelard, the sculptor explores the psychology of a dynamic imagination, outside categories. Objects live, like images.
During a meal organized in the presence of the artist, we were able to discuss his career, inspirations, and life:
- You are a native of Buenos Aires, what is your current relationship with your home country?
I go back often, but I must say that it’s been 40 years since I left Argentina. Even if I go 3 or 4 times a year, little by little a cultural distance is settling in, and it’s a big surprise for me. I didn’t feel this 20 years ago. I am so involved in my French and European life that I am losing track a bit. I still keep my French accent though.
- Objects where people sit, settle, or relax often recur in your work. The chair, the bench… What draws you to them?
In design and architecture, the chair object is a kind of fetish object. There’s a huge attraction. Making one’s seat is what differentiates us from the entire animal world. We spend a large part of our time sitting or lying down. It is also an object that reveals a lot about the technicality and technology of the time. It speaks of the civilization that uses it. In African culture, for instance, we have individual chairs that are not lent and with which we travel. There’s always a chair depicted lying down, because it holds the soul of the people, and no one can sit on it.
- One might say that you sometimes assign a function to the material but strip the object of its function?
There are functional objects where I elide the function to free it from that burden and allow it to embark on a poetic derivative. There is a difference when I use pure material, like a block of marble, and when they are materials with elaboration. Even a tree trunk can fit into that framework, it was created for a function, but I do not respect it, and I assign it another. That is to say, I rely on its material capabilities to evolve and I try to create a seal between the boundaries. Or rather a non-seal. I was going to say porosity, but I mentioned seal, that lapse is interesting because it’s the opposite of what I meant to say. Sealing means not passing, and what I do is the contrary, I believe we can always pass through. We can always surpass and go further. It is never sure to remain where we are.
- Michel Serres, who passed away a few weeks ago, wrote a text “Geodesics” about your works. He explains notably that you make the lines of the surface of the volume explode to show them more clearly. Did you know him well?
Yes, I knew him well, and I deeply regretted his passing. I loved him a lot, he was an absolutely incredible man. When he wrote that text, we had talked together beforehand, and he went with this idea of free geodesy. It fascinated me because I found it perfectly well described, and I was dazzled while reading it.
- Why is Polygone the ideal place to host the dozen works exhibited there?
I was not surprised by this request. I have already seen it in Japan. In Asia, often, shopping centers are places that become museums. In any case, it was like that 30 years ago. Simply because that’s where people go, and where we can place works. This idea was clear to me, I have no conflict with the commercial part because it is also a function. I easily embrace the idea of seeing what function this whole will take. Can it engage, put into abyme, or criticize?
I do not make a work that openly critiques, but under a very playful and lighthearted aspect, it still shows the brutality of growth. Little by little, I am beginning to engage in a sort of activism. You see, if we put air and plant growth together, we are right in the problem.
The Vocabulary of Pablo Reinoso
Every artist invents his language and gives a precise definition of his approach. Here are three essential words of Pablo Reinoso, explained by himself:
Object
An object is a three-dimensional thing whose attributes we do not yet know. It is only an object. One could say an object and an unidentified object are somewhat the same as long as we do not put an adjective behind it. An object to sit on, a love object, a relaxation object, or an unknown object.
Function
The function is somewhat what reveals the object. From the moment we understand the function of the object, it regains logic. This logic is sometimes dominated by the function, sometimes by aesthetics or materiality.
Material
For a sculptor like me, the relationship with the material and its understanding are key data. It’s very good to isolate these three words because that’s where everything operates.
