Roland Cognet, Konrad Loder - The forms elude us.
Opening, Saturday March 15th, 5-21 PM.
Two routes which are marked by rigour and attention to the world and which share in common nature, the diverted, isolated and magnified object.
15 March - 10 May 2014
In this exhibition, two sculptors of the same generation meet. For more than 30 years, they have
been venturing onto parallel paths and places: workshops, teaching, museums, galleries, art centres, collectors, to encounter here, at the Duboys gallery. Two routes which are marked by rigour and attention to the world and which share in common nature, the diverted, isolated and magnified object. Apparently simple representations from miniature to oversize. Two uncommon processes determined by personal cultures and stories.
With Roland Cognet, nature and the trees guide his dialogue with shape, this is how he ontinues his family history. He questions, moulds, extrudes and explores the body of trunks, the heart of the time to give life to works which he inscribes on sites and miniatures. Settings up which he puts on stage like offerings to the glory of nature, Totem-menhir facing the sea and the wind, alter for Sequoia, rhythms of trunks opposite historic facades, meditation tablets as invitations to dreaming.
These works have the sturdiness of the Romanesque churches of the Massif Central. Evidences planted straight which jut out and protect, look afar, like the Virgins of Saint-Nectaire and Conques, a path similar to the one which we can take in from the square of the Puy cathedral. Roland makes his way, driven by a quiet strength in the shade of the Gergovie plateau.
For Konrad Loder, it is an engineer trend which accompanies him in his creations to realise and restore life to the common place. A logical and voluntary process which enables him to go forward serenely in an adventure where are born mutant objects coming out of nothing, of everyday life, of accidents, of unusual meetings and of reprocessed objects.
From what is modest, from what is trivial to what is gigantic he develops the infinite in time and space. Numerous objects which one discovers on a beach when the sea recedes in order to offer us its treasures. The sculptures are there, without any pedestal. Matter-things forgotten, remodelled : turret, rubber, shells, cables, tar, paints, wood, and ropes put together, directed, modelled with simple gestures, renewed, accompanied and rolled up in time. Intelligence, logic and order serving a poetry of uselessness which is so beautiful and human that it moves us and can help us to live on.
Roland and Konrad, two memories which are concentrated in order to help us to apprehend the world.
Thierry Diers
Roland Cognet: Born in 1957 in Désertines in Allier, lives and works in Jussat in Auvergne. He is teaching arts at l’ESADS (Ecole Supérieure d’art de Clermont Métropole).
His art work is regularly exhibited in galleries and art centers. He received many public orders (Pierre Gianadda Fondation, Martigny, Switzerland, FRAC Auvergne, Collection of the city of Paris).
Konrad Loder : Born in 1957 in Munich, graduated from the Munich Fine Arts School, he settled in France in 1991, where he works and lives eversince (Perreux sur Marne, near Paris). He isteaching arts at l’ESADS (Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg).
His art work is regularly exhibited in galleries and art centers. He received many public orders from cities such as Chartres, Lille, Douai... Or from the Government (Home Office Department at Saint-Pierre...).
Thierry Diers