Rybon Residency Program - Pierre Laurent (France)

Pierre Laurent is a visual artist who works across a wide array of materials. He is interested in site specific works and details are so important in his works. Mostly the objects he appropriates become his materials, all the while referencing his experiences and the places of his work. During the past years he has participated in various publics, exhibitions, workshops and residencies. Pierre Laurent received his diploma from the National Superior School of Fine Art of Paris in 1999. He lives and works in Lyon.

Here in his one month stay Iran, he was influenced and inspired by Iranian traditional art and geometric shapes, leading him to create installation art work inspired by the structure and concept of them. This is what Pierre herself wrote on his feelings and experience:

“The day is reflected on the dark mirror of night.”

Paper Chandelier

I have tried to simply collect different aspects of Iranian traditional and contemporary culture in temporary space provided by Daarbast, keeping in mind that the cover always reveals the more profound significations.

My primary goal has been to evoke the characteristic shape of mosque domes which has been presented in the form of a simple performance using a regular circular structure and gravity of Earth. The top of the curve slowly comes to contact with the ground at a point of tangency.

Using newspapers gives me a module of both space and time; they have their own dimensions, cutting the time in days, and at the same time providing a social content.

Newspapers have been purchased and added to the structure every day, regardless of their content that go together with no sorting or selecting, testifying of daily events.

The geometric structure produced by juxtaposition of the papers and the transparency effect, remind the viewer of Gabbeh rugs and the perforated partitions of Orsi’s (windows enclosing many small frames with colorful glass).

Does this thin layer of information have the value of a talisman? Can it be one of the 700,000 veils that separate us from the state of clairvoyance?

The color comes in contrast to the black that is only the absence of color, it plays with form and space fleetingly, casting human figures on the ephemeral surface of newspapers, carrying the information that turn to be untimely and void so fast.

As the vanities (a special kind of still life) of the 16th century, this installation encourages to preserve the essential, ie the quality of shared moments.