John Cornu, Antlantes & Cariatides no 5, 2021-2022

Damaged African statues, wood scraps, Indian ink and black wax

40 (H) x 18 (L) x 30 (W) cm 

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In the exhibition "Atlantes & Cariatides" John Cornu confronts the viewer with deconstructed African wooden sculptures of the type "simple replicas of a so-called primitive art". They are found objects and processed by the artist in a modernist way. The sculptures are tourist souvenirs from Africa, like millions of which have probably ended up in living rooms worldwide since the beginning of the 20th century. John Cornu addresses the "points of tension between African and European sculpture" and anchors "a multitude of paradoxes in his installation", according to Jean-Roch Bouiller, director of the Museum Des Beaux-Arts Rennes, in a text about John Cornus' sculptures "Atlantes et Cariatides “.

John Cornu works with an aesthetic inherited from Minimalism and Modernism (monochromy, seriality, modularity, the primacy of the materials), while maintaining a strong relation to (historical, architectural, societal) context and a form of contemporary Romanticism (Dionysianism, erosion, blindness, references to different sonic universes, and entropy).
With an interest for modern ruins, logics of power, and anthropological gaps, the artist imbues his productions with an atmosphere at once poetic, cathartic and without compromise. Whether sculptural, performative, or installation-based, they address paradoxical forces, setting up a multiplicity of meanings and readings.

Would you like more information about the artist? Please go to the gallery website at the top left to find out more about the artist. galeriegillaloercher.de > artist All texts in German and English.