Between Peaks
Eric Tabuchi
30 January – 13 March 2010
With Between Peaks, Erich Tabuchi offers a reflection on the concept of collection itself. Making use of “peripheral” objects, he travels tirelessly in the north of France in search of isolated locations which he archives according to different typologies. In this way, with Twenty Six Abandoned Gasoline Stations, he picks up on Ed Ruscha’s work, to reveal the uniqueness of these intermediate geographical locations and, thanks to the lack of any human presence, offers a perfectly objectified view of these ordinary constructions.
In the Hey Judd diptych, he humorously reclaims these minimalist architectural works, to pay homage to Donald Judd’s famous “Stack.” The objects become a pretext for creating formal links which disturb our vision and offer a reflexive development on their two- and three-dimensional qualities.
With Totem, Eric Tabuchi enumerates forms from the sculptural register to create a tautological object, that lies between sculpture, plinth and installation, and which makes reference to its function in the composition itself. The stylised object disturbs our sense of photographic realism, notable in the Hypertrophy series which exposes this serial obsession and, thanks to a formal analogy, reveals several unique dialogues.
BP, Esso, Total et Shell is a series of models, related to statuettes from a Primitive Art collection. The series works on the literal principal of occurrence, to allow for a reversal of the situation. By reversing the plinths to make gas stations of them, Eric Tabuchi establishes a formal link between two collections with no a priori relation. The device alters the principle of objective photography through its documentary aspect and its natural archival purpose. However, as opposed to Bernd and Hilla Becher, major figures in this new objectivity, he avoids the purely documentary aspect and directs his research towards an alteration of the history of form, to thwart the codes and to physically raise these everyday architectural objects to the rank of monuments.
In Projet pour un motel en bord de mer (made up of the photography of a construction, a model of this same construction and a drawing representing the construction model, itself photographed) Eric Tabuchi reverses the processes of architectural creation, blurring the line between documentary and fiction, reality and simulation, volume and plane.
Between Peaks could be seen as a collection of heterogeneous pieces, but that doesn’t take into account the use of semantics and the interaction of a dialectical relationship, which gives this exhibition a rigorous structure that questions the definition of the object itself, and opens up the possibility of a voluminous perception of images.
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Abandoned Gasoline Station / Dijon
2010, pigment print on Hahnemuhle Baryta paper, laminated on Dibond, 109.5 x 78 cm, edition of 5.
photo © Eric Tabuchi.
Projet pour un motel en bord de mer,
2010, collection made up of a drawing from Julian Lévy, a photograph and a model. Pencil on Moleskine notebook paper, framed, 40 x 35 cm, pigment print on Hahnemuhle Baryta paper, framed, 99 x 79.5 cm, model in Perspex and black foam board, 36 x 36 x 40 cm, edition of 3.
photo © Eric Tabuchi.
Totem (sculpture)
2010, MDF, 88 x 23 cm, unique edition of 1. photo © Eric Tabuchi.
Hypertrophy
2007 – 2009, pigment prints on Baryta paper, laminated on Dibond, 42 x 33 cm, edition of 5.
photo © Eric Tabuchi.
Hey Judd,
2008, black triptych, framed pigment print, 30 x 34 cm, edition of 5.
2008, white triptych, framed pigment print, 30 x 34 cm, edition of 5.
BP, Esso, Total et Shell
2010, collection made up of a photograph and a sculpture, varying dimensions, patinated pewter, framed pigment print, edition of 3.
photo © Eric Tabuchi.
Restricted Areas
2009, laminated pigment print on Hahnemuhle Baryta paper, 20 x 26.7 cm each, edition of 3.
La Charité-sur-Loire (droite)
2009, photograph from film, framed, 112 x 84 cm, edition of 5. photo © Eric Tabuchi.
BP, Esso, Total et Shell
2010, collection made up of a photograph and a sculpture, varying dimensions, patinated pewter, framed pigment print, edition of 3.
photo © Eric Tabuchi.
BP, Esso, Total et Shell
2010, collection made up of a photograph and a sculpture, varying dimensions, patinated pewter, framed pigment print, edition of 3.
Totem (photograph, previous page)
2007 – 2009, pigment prints on Hahnemuhle photorag paper, framed, 52 x 43 cm, edition of 5.
photo © Eric Tabuchi.