Ratiocination, the title of the show chosen by the artist, illustrates his soft spot for things with many meanings, and games. Somewhere between science and fiction, Zarka's work gives rise to many different interpretations, from a scientific-cum-historical vision which will delight nerds, to the more Pop vision adopted by the skaters' friend.
Galerie Michel Rein is pleased to be holding its first ever solo show of Raphaël
Zarka's work. This artist, born in 1977, a graduate of the Beaux-Arts de Paris and
the Winchester School of Art, and author of two books on the history of the
skate-board*, came to notice as a result of his work presented at the last Lyon
Biennial. Titled Riding Modern Art, the installation consisted of a series of
photographs depicting skaters at work on modern art sculptures in public places, and
a modernist sculpture by Kobro. A significant aspect of Raphaël Zarka's work thus
appeared between the lines: his interest in the migration of forms, from Renaissance
scientific objects to the skate-board ramp by way of modernist sculpture.
In the exhibition at the gallery, the artist will be showing, in particular,
Tautochrone, a replica sculpture of an object developed by Galileo to study pendulum
movement. Through the replica, the artist reveals several meanings for one and the
same form, as if to play on a collective unconscious encompassing 21st century urban
culture as much as humanist inventions from the Renaissance.
Ratiocination, the title of the show chosen by the artist, illustrates his soft spot
for things with many meanings, and games. It is a word borrowed from Edgar Allan Poe
which the writer used to describe his most cerebral stories, such as The Murders in
the Rue Morgue, with which he invented the genre of the detective novel. "To
ratiocinate" means, in both the literal and the literary sense, to apply an
ultra-rational method to both writing and investigation. In the pejorative sense, it
also means a misuse of reasoning, otherwise put, the imitation of rationalism
without any real scientific content.
In his plastic work, Raphaël Zarka plays with this plurality of meaning. With much
precision he handles the art of the replica and of reconstruction (as is evident
from his sculpture re-creating the Study of St. Jerome, as painted by Antonella da
Messina), and deduction (some of his sculptures are forms found by way of deduction
from other sculptures). In so doing, he faithfully follows Poe's principle of
"ratiocination" and tacks close to the artist-architect-scientist model dear to the
Italian Renaissance (Da Vinci and Alberti). But he is also attached to error, poetry
and the free association of forms and ideas, which illustrates the second meaning of
the term "ratiocination" and likens him to the work of artists belonging to the same
generation, like Ryan Gander.
The Rhombicuboctahedra--replica sculptures which Zarka will be showing in the
exhibition-- may resemble scientific objects, but they also come across as unusual
phenomena when they appear like readymades in the series of photographs titled The
Forms of Rest. Once again we can find these objects in a painting produced by the
British artist Christian Ward for the show, which serves to bolster the strangeness
of their existence.
Somewhere between science and fiction, Raphaël Zarka's work gives rise to many
different interpretations, from a scientific-cum-historical vision which will
delight nerds, to the more Pop vision adopted by the skaters' friend. The reality of
his work is possibly situated this side of all this, in a poetic interstice where
the forms can be read in several ways without these different meanings being
mutually exclusive.
Raphaël Zarka has had many solo shows in France and abroad, including Foundation at
the Galerie 1m3 in Lausanne (curated by Julien Fronsacq), En Milieu Continu at the
Gallery of the Nantes School of Fine Arts (2007), and Padova at La Vitrine in Paris
(curated by Mathilde Villeneuve, 2008). The exhibition Ratiocination is the fourth
part of this series of solo shows. He also took part in Paris in the group show
project 220 jours (curated by Elodie Royer and Yoann Gourmel).
Isabelle Alfonsi
Opening reception: Saturday, May 24, 4-9pm
] Galerie Michel Rein
42 rue de Turenne - Paris
Free admission