Nicolas Daubanes, Declarations (Triptych)

Nicolas Daubanes, Declarations (Triptych), 2017,

Magnetic steel powder, 210 × 100 cm

“Nicolas Daubanes’ iron filings represent active or disused prisons, built according to the panoptic model developed by the brothers Jeremy and Samuel Bentham at the end of the 18th century. An architectural symbol of what Michel Foucault called the “surveillance societies”, the latter combines architectural pragmatism and judicial functionalism by allowing total observation based on the principle of “seeing without being seen”. The former prison of Saint-Paul in Lyon, whose entrance he reproduces here, is characteristic of these disciplinary places that embody the intimidating power of justice. Its facade appears here at first sight all the more authoritative as it is taken in low angle and slightly slanted, rendered in its inhospitable condition, and even resolutely hostile, while its metallic reflections freeze it in an oppressive coldness.
The use of iron filings allows Nicolas Daubanes to make his subject coincide with the means of his representation. First of all, it shows the omnipresence of metal in the prison space which, from bars to armored doors, from cameras to watchtower plates, displays an iron aesthetic specific to secure places. But at another level of reading, it can also induce a more speculative narrative by referring to the traces of an imaginary escape, to the remains left by a prisoner who would have filed the bars of his cell. The choice of this extremely volatile material finally translates the artist’s will to submit the mode of representation to the rules imposed by the clandestine nature of the fugitive, who cannot leave any clues or perennial inscriptions behind him.
The fragility of the material also feeds the representation of a building symbolically weakened in its foundations. Artist-vandal, Nicolas Daubanes finds in the plastic precariousness of his work the means to oppose the power and the authority of his subject. The drawing is not actually drawn, but rather placed, suspended on the paper, held by the force of attraction of a magnetized surface. The pattern is first cut out of a magnetic sheet, then placed on a metal plate and covered with a sheet of white paper. The iron filings are then distributed on its surface and fixed by magnetization by mechanically following the shape of the pattern. The tenuous balance of the material has the effect of making the drawing potentially ephemeral, itself a prisoner of a visibly fallible device, which cannot allow itself the slightest second of relaxation. The obvious non-permanence of the building is also supported by the irregularities of the line which let appear more blurred surfaces, in a rendering close to an old postcard. The threatening impression left by the first glance is then succeeded by the sensation of an almost touching vulnerability in front of these buildings of the past, on the verge of collapse.”

Florian Gaité, notice of work for the FRAC Occitanie Montpellier (extract).

Categories: , SKU: GEV4175874660

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