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25/6/2009

Frederic Pradeau

Laure Genillard, London

Frédéric Pradeau born in 1970 and living in Paris brings a strong element of surprise to the gallery’s visitor. In his exhibition in 2004 at the Corentin Hamel Galerie in Paris, he shrunk the gallery space (by creating new walls) to standard wall sizes such as those used in the construction industry for cheap housing. He called the exhibition L’Homme qui rétrécit, the Shrinking Man. A work entitled Désertificateur 2005 at the Naples Gallery Raucci Santamaria, consisted of a floor sculpture made with a pile of white dust surrounded by strong terrarium lamp, looking very much like an elegant piece of minimal work. The white powder was in fact Calcium chloride, which literally took away the saliva of the approaching visitor, the neon lights had a blinding intensity, both recreating the environmental conditions of a desert.

In London, the starting point of the exhibition is based on a found piece of sliced bread left in a trolley by a tramp in Hyde Park in 2001. The tramp ate the centre of the soft bread and left the crust, leaving a shape resembling the Pound Sterling symbol. Pradeau entitles the work Fortune. From a simple symbol to the vast notion of money, the artist then derives multiple figures, drawings and sculptures, all associated with the effects that *money* creates, numerically or quantitatively, emphasising its arbitrariness. Numbers fascinates Frédéric Pradeau. Abstract drawings of multiple orange and yellow coloured squares evoke numbers, further developed in an audio work demanding mental calculus considerations from the listener. Visual and mental associations are suggested by works encountered either in the upstairs gallery space and echoed in the downstairs space, forcing an exercise of visual memory and mental metaphors. This is his first solo exhibition in London after his participation at the Liverpool Biennale in 2007.

Private view: Friday 26th June: 6 – 8PM

Laure Genillard
2 Hanway Place - London
hours: Wed – Sat: 2 - 6PM
free admission

stampa

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