march 12 • april 30, 2022
Drawings and sculptures
Espace à vendre begins its year 2022 dedicated to drawing with an exhibition of a leading artist of the medium in its space called the castle: Gilles Barbier.
The complex work of Gilles Barbier (born in 1967 in Vanuatu, lives and works in Marseille) is articulated around the principles of doubt, ambivalence and the multiplicity of meanings. Like a forest that remains to be cleared as it is profuse and lush.
He was one of the first artists to settle in the Friche Belle de Mai in Marseille, born from a former factory, today the place of creation and innovation in which he has his studio.
Language is omnipresent in his art: “j’essaie d’alcooliser le langage ; j’essaie de le bourrer, le faire brouter, le mâchouiller. Dans mes dessins ou mes sculptures, j’aime l’idée d’émulsion.” (I try to make language alcoholic; I try to stuff it, make it graze, chew it. In my drawings or sculptures, I like the idea of emulsion)
Built on a system where everything is possible and where each piece is only the visible version of all its potential versions, his work conceals multiple flows whose interlacing draws an aesthetics of consumption.
Work : Gilles Barbier, Hawaiian Ghost #7 (détail), 2017, Gouache sur papier, 190 x 123 cm, Courtesy Galerie Georges-Philippe et Nathalie Vallois
