FRED MARS LANDOIS

Transcription

FRED MARS LANDOIS

FRED MARS LANDOIS
PRESS KIT - February 2012
MARS.
Guardian of Human Richness
www.mars-factory.com
“I was eight years old when first I saw
Beaubourg, and I remember being
very irritated ”
Fred MARS Landois
Portrait à la Drina, 2011. Printed on Baryta paper. © Milomir Kovacevic
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FRED MARS LANDOIS
Contents
p. 3
Portrait
p. 4
Examples of works exhibited
p. 11
Review by Hauviette Bethemont
p. 13
Interview with Fred MARS Landois
p. 16
Contact information
Eureka Utopie, 2010. Serigraph, 70cm x 50cm. Limited to 10 original copies
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FRED MARS LANDOIS
Portrait
Biography
Fred MARS Landois is graduated with a master degree from the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Valence in 2001. He studied painting,
publishing, and printing techniques from serigraphy to offset.
Without any favourite art medium, the artist is in the service of
the project and surrounds himself with a team of specialists to
achieve any of these.
Historical or mythological, influences that shape his work are
always popular. Fred MARS Landois considers that his art is a
blend of critical and political influences.
Fred MARS Landois was born in 1975.
In 2001 he formed the association “A Musée la Galerie” (the
name is a play on words in French “ Amuser la galerie” and
“Play to the Gallery” in English).
© Élise Boularan
Exhibitions
2004
“Le Linéaire” Hotel de Clérieux Gallery - Romans-sur-Isère, France
“Veni, Vidi, Exposui n°1 & n°2” Bordeline Gallery - Nantes, France
“J-1” Castel Coucou Gallery - Forbach, France
“Veni, Vidi, Exposui n°3” Octave Cowbell Gallery - Metz, France
2012 “My galerist drives a Jaguar“ Modernart Galerie - Lyon, France
2011
“Vanité ta mère” la Twall - Strasbourg, France
Fair “Docks Art Fair” - Lyon, France
Exhibition “Itinérance” - Valence, France
Street Art “Vanité ta mère” on the wall of Saint-Martin - Paris
2003
“In and out” IN & OUT Gallery - Grenoble, France
2002
“Le jardin des possibles” - Lyon, France
“Zivio !” Collegium Artisticum - Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina
2010
Fair “Chic Art Fair” - Paris
“Nobody know the trouble I’ve seen” Modernart Galerie - Lyon
“Même quand on peint un incendie il faut se méfier d’ou vient le
vent” Identité REMARQUABLE - Orléans, France
Festival “Play-Box Grnd Zero” - Lyon, France
“Something in the way” Galerija 10m2, Sarajevo, BosniaHerzegovina
2001
“Au-dessus du volcan“ Maison du parc - Cébazat, France
“Inauguration“ Le linéaire Gallery - Romans-sur-Isère, France
2000
“La belle aventure“ le Linéaire Gallery - Romans-sur-Isère, France
“Camping 2000“ Le Linéaire Gallery - Romans-sur-Isère, France
“Hublot“ ART 3 - Valence, France
2009
“Le pieu” La Halle - Pont-en-Royans, France
1998
“Assis de préférence“ ERBA - Valence, France
2008
“Sarajevo Winter” the International Festival - Sarajevo, BosniaHerzegovina
“Video Salon 3”, Galerija 10m2 - Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Publications
2007
3 months in Sarajevo to support the project “Zlatana ribica”
“Video Salon 2” Galerija 10m2 - Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Exhibition catalogue “Sarajevo Winter” festival
Exhibition catalogue “le Quintenat” Octave Cowbell Gallery
2005
“Fulltime/ultime” Galerija 10m2 - Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina
“BOOK’S” Galerija 10m2 - Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Online magazine www.inmybedmagazine.com
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The Place of the Dead Rider, 2012. Windshields, holes. Photograph © Juan Robert
Playground, 2012. Metal structure and screening.
Photograph © Juan Robert
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FRED MARS LANDOIS
Écriture ordure, slogans poétiques et autre fragrance du moment, 2012.
Printed on Rivoli paper, stencil. Photograph © Juan Robert
Le Douxième Homme, 2012. Football shirt and adhesive lettering.
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FRED MARS LANDOIS
View from the exhibition “My galerist drives a Jaguar”. Photograph © Juan Robert
Abracadabra, 2012. Flexible hose light & The place of the Dead rider, 2012. Windshield, holes.
View from the exhibition “My galerist drives a Jaguar”. Photograph © Juan Robert
Vanité ta mère, 2011. Offset priting & Portrait à la Drina, 2011. Printed on Baryta paper. © Milomir Kovacevic
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FRED MARS LANDOIS
Vanité ta mère, 2011. Offset printing, 100 cm x 70 cm. Limited to 29 original copies.
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FRED MARS LANDOIS
Le gris c’est du fuschia pour les chiens, 2011. Street art project on the wall Saint-Martin in Paris
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FRED MARS LANDOIS
Un fleuve est plus libre que moi, 2009. Participation at the “Sarajevo Winter” International Festival
Picture taken from posters hung in Sarajevo city.
Un chevalet à Sarajevo, (n.d.). Photograph. 9
FRED MARS LANDOIS
Joie de recevoir, 2010. Serigraph, 70cm x 50cm. Limited to 10 original copies.
Fatamorgana, 2010. Steel cage and smoke.
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FRED MARS LANDOIS
Review by
Hauviette Bethemont
Memento mori
In Fred MARS Landois’ work, vanity is a recurring theme.
It is about a simple skull drawing, reduced to a few dots. A sketch from numbers is inviting you, like
in a game, to connect the numbers one after another without stopping, so as to achieve a correct
result, even for the most mediocre of drawers. Constantly evolving, this skeleton to the lowest common human denominator seems to refer, in a frivolous manner, to death. And yet, this mention of
child’s play, where the big reaper interferes without advance warning, speaks better than anyone
else on the vacuity of life and on its ephemeral aspect. The title “Vanité ta mere,” which can change
meaning at any time to “Nique ta mère (Fuck Your Mother),” lends a touch of sarcasm, intentionally
iconoclastic.
When you ask him why this vanity? The artist says everyone today has drawn his or her skull on paper
or on canvas so the theme became ordinary. Thus, he proposes to simplify the work and offer a
ready-to-use template.
His art pieces are proposals between laughter and tears, a mockery that suits him well. A light
breath of death is present in the exhibition. It is never in the pathos way, but in a right way thanks
to humour. Black humour of course. In the art piece titled “The place of the dead rider,” you recognize the noted skull inlaid in a car windshield. This time there are no windshield fragments caused
by disastrous accident, but perfect holes (recalling the dots of the draw) and as clean as if a Magnum
had made them.
On the smooth and lightly rounded surface, holes appear in the light’s thickness, ghosts from a scenario that again you imagine tragic, because it is impacted from the front passenger seat of the car,
usually called “the dead’s man seat.”
In the same vein, you have “Le Douzième Homme (The Twelfth Man),” which is an art piece made
from a black and white striped shirt apparently raising arms to the sky, that hides well some role
play. For the experts, this is the football shirt of a Michel Platini who used to excel at this sport in the
past. Platini is the twelfth man and his arms raised are like a barbarian equation recalling a stopped
frame, the one of the Heysel stadium where the grass field was covered in blood from the blows and
fans’ bodies. The twelfth man is for the football professionals, the twelfth indispensable player to
the team i.e. the supporter, fan of his club and of the soccer ball and ready for the final sacrifice
of the show. But we can consider that in this story, he is also the twelfth of the jury (from Heywood
Gould’s movie) who refers to the justice’s shadow, immanent and coldly human.
Fred MARS Landois likes to mix the senses and words together, into a curious melting pot from which
emerges dismantled poetry. A note of despair, a pain to life, a pain to death, that remain cleverly
attractive to avoid vulgarity of great fears. Fred Landois likes shortcuts and his gentle violence is
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unveiled by enigmas, game of senses. He knows how to create enough intimacy to never be submitted to some brutality.
The invitation card says it. His gallery owner drives a Jaguar, and we assume this artist knows how to
choose, based on refinement criteria, the people he surrounds himself with. A touch of elegance in
a rough world, a touch of clichés to bear it, as if it were essential to romanticize a little bit to make
it bearable. In the exhibition, Fred MARS Landois has, besides, insisted to hang the gallery owner’s
portrait on a wall “Galerist at Home,” an allusion to the elapsed time of the art history when paintings paid homage to collectors and sponsors, mockery of his own role in this milieu, which became
worldly.
And to soften the atmosphere he added the word Abracadabra in illuminated letters, a reference
to childhood innocence. After all it is also a pleasure of being simply here. A touch of magic, which
make appear and disappear the Prince Charming like rabbits, so why not artists?
Always as picture games and unexpected encounters, those Sarajevo Olympic village’ photographs
(Moj Milo), are almost golden and sublimated in the tremendous ugliness of its architecture. Sarajevo
is like another essential influence, which has been part of Fred MARS Landois’ work for a long time.
Sarajevo is a city that the artist likes, a devastated city at the frontier of history and violence. This
borderline urban space corresponds to this tightrope traveller, who goes through imaginary lines on a
rope, sharing his minor phlegm face to our daily-trivialized cruelty. Shy, introspective, he knows how
to make his words into music. This is a jingle in the form of Haiku, Japanese poetry, full of irony and
controlled despair “I would like my life to be like a refrigerator door, you open it and lights are on.”
Fred MARS Landois presents his own dance of death version, a delicate and poetic embrace where
the momento mori would be a song in a music box.
Hauviette BETHEMONT
Fred MARS Landois’ exhibition: “My galerist drives a Jaguar”
January 2012
Modernart Galerie, Lyon, France
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FRED MARS LANDOIS
Interview with
Fred MARS Landois
“The idea was that work, once
started, would now follow me; it
was a manly and protesting way
to say that as long as I live, I am
an artist. As long as I am an artist,
you are hearing from me.”
PR: Please briefly introduce yourself.
I was a student in fine arts and this was a real human and
artistic inquiry. We arrived in Sarajevo and I was suddenly
faced with the reality: I had only before seen images on TV
and when I saw where he had lived, I discovered bullet’ holes
in his apartment building. He told me the front lines had been
positioned in front of his windows. We walked around the city
for two or three days. People did not walk around carrying
cameras in 1998, and people stared at us.
FL: I was born in Vizville. I spent 6 years at the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts in Valence, and earned my Master’s degree in
arts at DNSEP (Superior National Diplomas of Plastic Arts).
Then I moved to Lyon. As I continued my artistic reasoning,
I travelled to Sarajevo and formed the association AMG (A
Musée la Galerie) with Damir Radovic.
PR: You mentioned you travelled to Sarajevo.
What ties do you have to this city?
It felt uncomfortable having the camera with me, so I
decided not to wear it; immediately everything was all right.
Something clicked for me when we went to the Olympic
stadium, which was turned into an underground cemetery.
We were surrounded by graves, and I didn’t feel like doing
this project anymore. I am not a journalist, nor am I Bosnian,
I am just an artist. It was not my role.
FL: I went to Sarajevo for the first time in April 1998, when
I met Damir Radovic who was a first-year student from the
same department in which I was taking classes.
My project was to affix posters illustrating Towers of Babel
in the cities that I found problematic, and Sarajevo was one
them. So I said him randomly, “if you go to Sarajevo, I will go
with you.” Actually, he had to go there, and then I followed
him on an impulse.
We had been in Sarajevo for fifteen days, when one night the
images of nine specific places appeared to me, and I knew it
was necessary for me to do this project. That night, we went
to hang posters. The pictures were taken the next day.
PR: Can you tell us about the Towers of Babel project?
It was the first highlight of the Sarajevo visit and a highlight
for my work.
FL: I imagined the project like a wandering. It was a matter
of apprehending a city, people, places, and not necessarily
touristic or famous, but that corresponded to this gesture.
During the war in Yugoslavia, I was in high school and I
took an interest in this conflict, but to me it seemed very
complicated. Meeting Damir, who had experienced this war
for 9 months, helped me shatter all the preconceived beliefs
I had about war.
PR: Can you tell us about your artistic influences?
FL: I was eight years old when first I saw Beaubourg, and I
remember being very irritated.
I was with my father, who had no knowledge of art history
but wanted to initiate me to this milieu, and I remember
developing a great anger from what I was seeing.
We travelled by train across Italy, where we were both
foreigners. I heard him speak in his Serbo-Croatian language
for the first time when we got to Ancona.
I have in mind the “Support/Surface” movement. I did not
understand why fixed windows were art. I did not understand
why a man painting a blue square could exhibit. I was irritated
and felt helpless faced with this.
We drove across Croatia with his parents, and there I started
to feel the pressure, question the project itself and what I
will do over there.
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FRED MARS LANDOIS
The only thing that I enjoyed was “La Boutique de Ben” which
I found lively, funny, and appealing; there were messages and
humour in it. So Ben, although I have changed my mind, was
very influential on my desire to do art.
world, but about accessible things, about experiences.
Influences are common, even when I talk about myself,
anyone can see himself or herself in them; when influences
are historical or mythological, there are comprehensible.
There are never difficult influences to understand. I don’t
like, on the other hand, explaining my work. Firstly because I
am not the best person. Then, I don’t know if the work of an
artist can be explained. Once the work is exhibited, it doesn’t
belong to me anymore, I can provide leads, but I don’t have
to give didactic explanations.
Then Duchamp and Warhol, of course, are true influences, but
I only take what I want from their work. Ernest Pignon-Ernest,
actually the collage, inspired me.
PR: Do you have a favourite art medium?
FL: I went to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Valence because I
wanted to try my hand at everything, and this school seemed
to train students in all art media. I was very interested in
publishing and printing techniques from serigraphy to offset.
During my second year of school I quit painting. I have no
favorite art medium; it is the idea of the project that matters
and I choose a medium depending on that.
However, one can still see a common theme. The watchtower
is the main theme. I don’t want to lose the audience, nor do
I want to provide them all the keys to the puzzle.
PR: You don’t want to transmit the tools necessary to
understand your work, but there are messages in your pieces.
One special aspect of my work is that I don’t produce my
art pieces; I have some people to do them. I have a team of
specialists for each area and I ask them to do things on my
behalf. I work with a graphic designer I have known for years,
who has followed my work, designed the layouts and the
graphical charter. I used to not explain this way of working,
but now I can. When I write and there are spelling mistakes,
I don’t really care because I attach much more importance to
the substance. But I know that spelling is essential for some
people.
FL: This is not an autistic’s work; a big part of my work is
in relation with the communication, either through the
publishing, the slogan or the post cards. It is important to know
that a part of my work is slipping out of my hands; writing a
post card is like establishing a mode of communication from
which I lose control when someone buys the post card.
PR: Do you see your work as critical art or political art?
FL: I am political in the broadest sense of the term. In fact,
I am not a political animal; the subject interests me, but not
from a politician’s point of view. I propose a reinterpretation
of the policy; if many things are artistic, many other things
are political. Regarding the critical art for criticizing, what
bothers me with criticism is when no suggestions are made.
I try to make suggestions. It’s true that in my work I play with
art.
So, I don’t want spelling mistakes or technical errors on my
texts or images that could interfere with the first impression
on the piece. When I ask for a photograph, I don’t want
lighting mistakes. I want the photo to be technically perfect
and be able to show it to experts so nothing bothers them.
PR: What you are saying is that you deal with the substance
and you delegate the form to professionals so that each art
piece is easier for everybody to understand, right?
PR: You are still in the art world by your artistic activity but
also in the non-profit sector and have a workshop that you
share with other people in Lyon.
Can you tell us a bit more?
FL: Exactly.
PR: So, how do you see your artistic activity? Working time?
Production? Thought?
FL: The association was formed in 2001, and is called A Musée
la Galerie. The idea was a collaboration between myself and
Damir Radovic, to have a structure for organizing events and
inviting artists’ friends. It was the idea of the Trojan horse,
to bring people to the art world.
FL: Firstly, this cannot be dissociated from what I am. Actually
all my projects are complicated, although on the surface one
would think that it is simple. It requires time, and lot of work
before you can find the right person, the right object.
I let professionals do the job, but all the background work I
do is to explain what I want. It costs more money, takes more
time, but I am never disappointed by what I suggest.
We exhibited it in Sarajevo in 2002, inviting French and
Bosnian artists in Sarajevo, and then proposed the same
exhibition in France. The association is part of the FRAAP,
Federation of Associations and Artists’ Collectives that raises
issues in which I have interest: the image rights, the status,
and the training of an artist.
PR: When you say that the background work is a time
explanation, is it an explanation for yourself, for the makers
of the art pieces?
FL: Exactly. This is a time to understand the stake, all the
parameters and to thoroughly explain to the specialists the
project they will be in charge of executing. When I am asked
about my work, I often say, “please, look first.” There are
always “popular” influences: I don’t talk about a dream
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“I have no favourite art medium;
it is the idea of the project that
matters and I choose a medium
depending on that.”
FRED MARS LANDOIS
I like things that unify.
Those black paintings were the starting point. All art pieces
in the citadel were linked to my story. There was a picture of
my death and black screens’ photographs that at that time I
took in the street. My work was accepted, but caused some
troubles. My fifth year, I wanted to make reference to these
black paintings and I designed a triptych where I greeted
them; titled “ I am 26 and I still paint black paintings,” and I
bared my soul to the jury. It was my last art piece at the Ecole
des Beaux-Arts.
PR: Do you make use of your nickname to do different things
from those you would sign with your surname?
FL: Today I reserve it for erotic works; this is another part of
me. It is also a sort of protection.
PR: Can you give more detailed information about your post
cards?
he idea was that work, once started, would now follow me;
it was a manly and protesting way to say that as long as I live
I am an artist. As long as I am an artist, you are hearing from
me. In Lyon, I was concerned that my work was too focused
on me. I managed to do a lot of things regarding Sarajevo,
boundaries, and origins. It took a huge part of my work,
which for me has many fields. For the exhibition at La Halle, I
wanted to find a catalyst for my work, before I knew that the
medium was the black painting. Today it is the song Le Pieu,
a Catalan song from the time of Franco, which summarizes
my work. The idea was to change the exhibition and add each
time new art pieces through the Pieu.
FL: I went to Grenoble when I was in high school to see a
mail art exhibition by Boetti. At that time, I had a very basic
vision of art: for me art was for example a painting, or a
photograph. The idea of writing, that something is travelling
and becomes art, made me think. I realized that art is not
just something hung in a museum or an art gallery. Then I
developed the idea.
I also participated in a workshop with Martine Aballéa. I
still held the stereotype of hanging and exhibiting art. Also
I worked on multiples and realized that art can be napkins,
without being a consumer product, but an artistic product.
My approach evolved with that goal in mind. I would not
have problems exhibiting plates not in Ben’s way or in a noncommercial way. The object is not misused. We go back to
this approach, which consists of recognizing the object.
As I thought about this, I came to the watchtower and to the
conclusion that I also was part of my work and for a while I
was not doing part of it. The watchtower is a way to show
my position and to disseminate the rest of my work. I often
get frustrated presenting pieces to people who don’t see
the background of my work because I rarely produce such
masterpieces.
With the post cards, I found the collective Carted that
publishes post cards. I made a series with them entitled “Tout
va pour le mieux dans le mailer daemon” (the name is a play
on words in French “ Tout va pour le mieux dans le meilleur
des mondes” and “What a Wonderful World” in English) and
will keep working with them. Since an art gallery represents
me, I am going to offer them for sale. But I have a hundred
slogans, even more, so the challenge is to find the sentence or
the reason why a sentence is on the post card, and to whom
I should address it. This year it was my greetings card, but I
also send them to artistic activities.
When I was doing exhibitions with Damir Radovic, we didn’t
discuss things beforehand, but we had the same line. When
we put our work together, without consulting each other,
there were similarities, common influences, and breathing.
I prefer not presenting one single piece, but rather several
pieces connected together, which are complementary, and
that point in other directions. I produce less than when I was
at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, but I have always considered
myself to be a factory. My website is www.mars-factory.
com, a reference to Warhol and also to communism, and
Stakhanovism. I know that when you produce a lot, it is
poorly looked upon by art galleries, but this is the way I work,
by instinct.
PR: Can you tell us about the watchtower in detail?
FL: In my third year, I was thrown out of the Ecole des BeauxArts because my work was too disseminated and I was unable
to bring it to fruition. All works were linked with a theme,
which was more or less autobiographical. In a way these
works were put before me. In fact I was hiding behind them.
Interview by Pascale RIOU
When I came back to school at the end of my third year, I did
the complete opposite, and I thought, “you want to see me,
you will see me.” I had my own classroom where I placed sand
bags outside the door. It was my citadel. Inside there were
43 black paintings and I wrote, “I am 23 and I paint black
paintings.” There was a reference to Mano Solo that no one
saw.
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FRED MARS LANDOIS
Contact information
Fred Landois/ MARS.
20, montée des Carmélites
69001 Lyon, France
Phone +33 (0)6 10 07 92 01
Email [email protected]
Website www.mars-factory.com
Modernart Galerie represents Fred MARS Landois
Please send an email to [email protected] or call
33 (0)4 72 87 06 82 to make an appointment.
65 Boulevard de la Croix-Rousse
69004 Lyon, France
Phone +33 (0)4 72 87 06 82
Email [email protected]
Website www.modernartgalerie.fr
Gallery hours:
Tuesday through Saturday: 4pm - 8pm
(5pm - 9pm summer hours)
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FRED MARS LANDOIS

Transcription

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