Galerie Dohyang Lee » Magali Lefebvre

Moduli, und so weiter, Usw, Komposition

digibit — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:41:34 +0000

MODULI,UND SO WEITER, USW,

KOMPOSITION

Magali Lefebvre

Moduli 2013, 12 tirages barytés, 30 x 40 cm, Sous-verres avec socle en bois vernis, Pièces uniques

Opening May the 4th, 18h – 21h

May 4th – June 8th 2013

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In order to grasp new elements that have come to compose a body of work and make it more dense and yet refined at the same time, it is sometimes necessary to backtrack in order to better apprehend the layered thicknesses that make the whole.

Such an exercise is suggested in the work itself, since Moduli reads like a logical continuation for the artist; particularly because she has subtly orchestrated prospective/retrospective movements. Moduli makes bold statements and allows things to transpire: its specificity reveals itself through a playful vis-à-vis with all the work that Magali Lefebvre has deployed since she distinguished herself through her photographic practice. Indeed she has since learnt to draw on the straightforward and strict properties imposed by the medium and its specificities, in order to explore other symbolic spaces: freeing herself as much as possible from literalness and contingencies, to then transgress any usual iconic principles.

In the last few years, Magali Lefebvre has made various volumes and installations and one of her specificities is the way she relates them and creates a dialogue with representational elements (traced drawings, plans, photographs), sometimes to better transgress their effects. En route, she still toys as much with the registers of objectivisation and abstraction. As such, Lefebvre weaves physical and semantic tensions which are the core of the underlying balance between plan and volume in Moduli.

For her first solo exhibition at the galerie Dohyang Lee, the artist first of all presents a series of 12 black and white silver gelatin prints, with geometric motifs that ostensibly evoke 3D digital modelling. Her formal language borrows stylistically from Bauhaus or Russian Constructivism, Oskar Schlemmer or the Sternberg Brothers (which she herself states as legitimate references).

These photographs are placed on the same level and displayed on small bases that provoke reflections on the glazing of the frames: small cones, spheres, cubes and other forms thus project the spectre of a double on the surface of an original image which is placed opposite. The effect of repetition reinforces the blur between model and copy which is already suggested in the biased use of techniques and their mode of representation. Moreover, it is important to note that, the represented forms result from plaster objets which have actually been made and are shown in the same gallery space, thus revealing the process of fabrication of Moduli and its accompanying illusion.

On another level, the exhibition is composed of drawings with flat areas in primary watercolour which pick up on the plaster works. With open or deconstructed planes, with perspectives and free assemblages, a certain formal realism bursts out and opens representational potentials which are made possible by drawing.

Like a new chapter, Moduli manifests the research that blends the formal finesse and conceptual discretion at work in Magali Lefebvre’s practice.

In this accompanying text, we tentatively risk some interpretations: firstly, since the spectator is at the centre of the work, Moduli, despite appearances, contradicts the modernist conception of a shared realism. In fact, the notion of autonomy of the artwork as existing objectively and universally is contradicted by a system of perception and interpretation which is intrinsic to Magali Lefebvre’s work. By a subtle play on contrasts which is not limited to the fetishisation of a modernist aesthetic and principles, Magali Lefebvre always eludes formal givens, on different planes.

Estelle Nabeyrat

Moduli 2013, 12 tirages barytés, 30 x 40 cm, Sous-verres avec socle en bois vernis, Pièces uniques

Moduli 2013, Série de plâtres aquarellés, Dimensions variables, Pièces uniques

Moduli 2013, Série de plâtres aquarellés Dimensions variables Pièces uniques

Moduli 2013, Série de plâtres aquarellés, Dimensions variables, Pièces uniques

Moduli 2013, 10 aquarelles, 10 x 15 cm, Sous-verres, Pièces uniques

MODULI, UND SO WEITER, USW, KOMPOSITION

dohyang lee — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:19:10 +0000

MODULI,UND SO WEITER, USW,

KOMPOSITION

Magali Lefebvre

Magali Lefebvre, Moduli, 2012, installation, plaster sculptures, variable dimensions

Opening May the 4th, 18h – 21h

04.05 – 08.06.2013

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Pour saisir les éléments venus fraîchement composer un corpus de travail bien plus dense – quoique raffiné —, il est parfois des rebours nécessaires pour mieux en appréhender l’épaisseur.

L’exercice est ici suggéré, car Moduli s’énonce comme une suite logique dans le parcours de l’artiste ; avec la particularité d’engager un mouvement, prospectif/rétrospectif, qu’elle a plus subtilement arbitré. C’est que Moduli assume autant qu’il laisse transparaître : sa singularité se dévoilant dans un jeu de vis-à-vis avec l’ensemble du travail que Magali Lefebvre a déployé depuis qu’elle s’est illustrée par sa pratique de la photographie. Car depuis, elle a su tirer les ficelles des évidences et des strictes propriétés que lui imposait le médium et ses spécificités, pour venir explorer d’autres espaces symboliques : se libérer, tant que faire ce peut, des littéralités et des contingences puis transgresser les principes icôniques d’usage.

Ces dernières années, Magali Lefebvre a réalisé plusieurs volumes et installations et c’est une particularité qu’elle a faite sienne de les mettre en relation et en dialogue avec des éléments de représentation (dessins tracés, plans, photographies), pour parfois transgresser leurs effets. Se jouant au passage, encore et toujours des registres d’objectivation, d’abstraction tout autant. Ainsi, M.Lefebvre tisse des rapports de tensions physiques et sémantiques qui sont au cœur de l’équilibre plan-volume sous-tendu dans Moduli.

Pour sa première exposition personnelle à la galerie Dohyang Lee, l’artiste présente tout d’abord une série de 12 tirages argentiques noirs et blancs, aux motifs géométriques qui évoquent ostensiblement la modélisation numérique d’un logiciel 3D. Son répertoire formel n’est évidemment pas sans ignorer une certaine stylistique empruntée du Bauhaus ou du constructivisme russe, Oskar Schlemmer ou les frères Sternberg s’imposant ici comme les références de l’artiste les plus légitimes.

Ces photos sont placées sur un même plan et dressées sur de petits pieds de façon à provoquer des jeux de réflexion dans le verre des cadres : petits cônes, boules, cubes et autres formes viennent ainsi projeter le spectre d’un double sur la surface d’une image originale placée en vis-à-vis. Cet effet de répétition vient renforcer le trouble modèle/copie déjà suggéré par l’usage biaisé des techniques et leur mode de représentation. Car, il faut le préciser, les formes représentées sont le résultat d’objets en plâtre véritablement façonnés et que l’on retrouve exposés dans le même espace de la galerie, dévoilant au passage le processus de fabrication de Moduli et l’illusion qui l’accompagne.

Un autre plateau est composé de dessins avec des aplats aquarellés de couleurs primaires reprenant les plâtres. Avec des plans ouverts ou déconstruits, des perspectives et des assemblages libres, le réalisme formel s’éclate et s’ouvre aux profits des potentiels de la représentation rendus possibles par le dessin.

Nouvelle étape, Moduli se présente ainsi comme l’articulation d’une recherche mêlant la délicatesse formelle et la discrétion conceptuelle que Magali Lefebvre déploie dans son travail.

Avec ce texte qui l’accompagne ici, nous risquons provisoirement certaines interprétations : tout d’abord parce que le spectateur est placé au cœur de l’œuvre, Moduli, malgré son apparence, vient contredire la conception moderniste d’un réalisme partagé. En effet, l’idée d’une autonomie de l’œuvre qui existerait objectivement et universellement est contredite par un système de perception et d’interprétation intrinsèque à l’œuvre de Magali Lefebvre. Par un subtil jeu de contrastes ne se limitant pas à la fétichisation d’une esthétique moderniste et des principes, Magali Lefebre déjoue toujours, sur différents plans, les à priori formels.

Estelle Nabeyrat

Vanishing Point / Vantage Point

dohyang lee — Sat, 14 May 2011 13:26:53 +0000

Vanishing Point / Vantage Point
Elena Damiani
Magali Lefebvre

02.04 – 14.05

Vanishing Point, Vantage Point brings together Elena Damiani and Magali Lefebvre around considerations of points-of-view and vanishing points, both necessary for the creation of a view in perspective. The two artists enter into a dialogue with architecture and question the manner of representation obtained through the conical projection of an object, which results in an analysis of the image that approaches our visual perception.

In the work of Elena Damiani, architecture is a technique for representing different conceptions of landscape. The Palimpsests 1 & 2 series – in which the definition itself integrates the idea of reincorporation into the same medium – delivers an overview of narratives by completely abstracting them from their spatial and temporal indices. The urban landscape oscillates between representation of the ephemeral and the inescapable traces of the past. This architecture, where ruin predominates, plays on an ambiguity of scale and on a strong connotative dimension, to offer a construction that is as retrospective as it is forward-looking. It’s in these disturbed and desolated territories, where each element loses its geographical location, that Elena Damiani records a personal archive of a manufactured time. To create her collages she has, over the years, collected old architecture manuals. In Untitled (Ronchamp), we find this ancestry with a reference to Le Corbusier’s Notre Dame du Haut de Ronchamp Chapel, finished in 1955. The original plans show an entirely curved construction, the harmonious forms employed by the architect making direct reference to the surrounding hills. In Untitled (Ronchamp), which uses some of the openings on the external façade, Elena Damiani pays tribute to this collusion between natural and artificial constructions.

Before turning to installation and sculpture, Magali Lefebvre practiced photography. It’s natural, therefore, that her work integrates the notion of perspective. For the exhibition Vanishing Point, Vantage Point, the artist brings together all of her pieces from the Playtime Without a Perspectograph project produced during her residency at Wiels in Brussels, in 2010. It is a project built around seven pieces, developing the progress from plan to form, from image to volume. This body of work contains willfully abstract constructions, joined to the ground by thin wooden poles. The motifs of anthropomorphic appearance thus seem suspended, and real landmarks are intentionally blurred by the flattening of lines and the configuration of points. These minimalist modules of inspiration create an anonymous architecture, a modeling of the real. Through the apparition of these forms, Magali Lefebvre invites us to produce movement in a static image, to experience a new cognitive dimension.

click here for printable version

Magali Lefebvre, Playtime without a perspectograph, wood, paper, seven silkscreen, 64 x 90 cm, edition of 5, photo © Aurélien Mole.

Magali Lefebvre, Playtime without a perspectograph, black and white photography, wood, painting, 27 x 36 cm, unique piece, photo © Aurélien Mole.

Elena Damiani, from the series Palimpsest II, 5 collages, 2010, Pillars under no shed, on an entropic site, The Hexahedron Sentinel, Study for a Symmetrical Dichotomy, Trenches, on a parched site, The Past is a Foreign Country II, unique, 37 x 54 cm framed, photo © Aurélien Mole.

Elena Damiani, from the series Palimpsest I, The changing image of the city, Road to mount V, 2010, 40 x 30 cm unframed, unique, photo © Aurélien Mole.

Elena Damiani, from the series Palimpsest I, Dislocations Tav. XIII, Remnants TAV. V, 2010, 40 x 30 cm unframed, unique, photo © Aurélien Mole.

Magali Lefebvre, Playtime without a perspectograph, 2010, wood, plaster, unique piece in two parts, photo © Aurélien Mole.

Magali Lefebvre, Playtime without a perspectograph, 2010, wood, cardboard, 202 x 85 x 5 cm, unique piece, photo © Aurélien Mole.