Tavola

This artwork was created under a marine theme. I create this, remembering a feeling I had lived looking to the horizon of the see and having in the foreground the vertical beams (known spars) of the oyster-farming

Reception desk with a marine theme, or table to accommodate twelve guests

This sculpture would be the conjugation of two readings. One is realistic, why we can decode a fishing net’s organization in the fine details, on stakes or spars (as we can se some along the oysters parks in France area). The second reading, more conceptual, play with the transparence, the movement and the lyricism, under the choice of the construction and the composition. The colors help into the references of these two readings, with the festive aspect that they decline.

Since the glass plate, the transparence express oneself into the central base, which is carved in many pierces, and let see so the interior of its volume. The surface of the glass plate which stand by the numerous tinny small jacks has something to do with the area of the water which is animated by the sculpture of the base. The movement is generated on one hand trough the choice of the net, which allow a animated surface creating a vibratory space. In an other hand, this same movement is also generated by the fasciculate stakes, placed in an aleatory way. This same stakes are borne from the necessity to oppose vertical rights, to structure and give nervousness to the horizontal construction, which is done with a progression of ellipses. The eye constructs some of them in reference to the high points of the capable mass. The other ones are better definite : these of the plate’s perimeter, and those of the lead base’s rope, more stocky, geometrically conceived to let a maximum of room and for the best stability of the piece. How can we describe upright position rights to make this opposition working, otherwise abstractly? For me a stone’s edge carved with a plumb line, convince me less as these planted stakes or spars by the oystermen, in water area’s reference. Under the longtime action and elements actions, they lean little bit, they erode they self looking like a billiard’s sticks, they shape to a ballet like dancing on the swell. They still stay in their environment, the emblematic referents of the upright line. On the net is writing a narrative, trough the different roads used by the cordages. They join the golden or painted floaters, giving the festive aspect to this set.

We are living, in my sense, a baroque time and guess to have told it right through that piece.

Footnote : This piece is used now as a reception desk in the Soulac-Medoc-Fondation Museum. The destination can be change to be sold. It could be conceived armchairs and chairs, all different to build an unique set. This ensemble could easy take place in the heart of a yacht.

Pierre Kauffmann