Zin TAYLOR, Portals
Bn PROJECTS are pleased to invite you to PORTALS, the exhibition specially conceived by Zin Taylor for Maison Grégoire.
The title of the project suggests an aspiration to porosity, integrating the poly-functional character of our unconventional art space which, whilst opening itself to renewed mental frames on the occasion of the exhibitions presented here, remains a working and living space for its owner.
Zin Taylor’s sculptural objects and installations, often fashioned with a sort of bemused and slightly humorous distance, materialize concepts in a somewhat contingent and casual way. Whilst taking the appearance and function of day-to-day objects (a monumental speaker, lamps, incense burners etc...), they will stand out at first glance, in apparent contrast with the modernist spirit of the architecture. But this contrast might be precisely the point, addressing some fundamental issues raised by the aesthetics of modernism. Indeed, one of the starting points of the project was, albeit subverting it somehow, to translate the objective of Van de Velde and of architectural modernism to conceive and apprehend architectural realisation as spaces allowing or even fostering additional mental projections by their inhabitants/occupants.
This very approach to architecture accounts for the deliberate neutrality of modernists buildings, free from any decorative pre-determination. In this sense, theirs is a formal vocabulary, which acts as a sort basic repertoire, to be activated and re-injected with the subjective personal syntax of the occupants. In this sense, we could also change metaphors, by apprehending a house as a portal made of steel, brick, wood and stone, opening up into subjective, affective or speculative worlds.
The passage of years, with the distinctive and evolving occupation of a building by its changing occupants (in the case of Maison Gr’goire, there have been only two waves of occupation, as it was bought by the present owner directly from Dr Grégoire, who had commissioned Van de Velde) inevitably bring about changes, which, although unavoidable and even desirable, sometimes make the initial architectural project hardly readable. If this is not the case in Maison Grégoire, the recent renovation of the first storey of the building has currently reinforced the domestic character of the reception rooms of the basement where the exhibitions usually take place.
Zin Taylor’s narratives for his project originate from the intimate materials present in the house, that is to say objects and belongings of the owner, and will integrate the present decor, amplifying or subverting these sometimes dissonant personal tracks, as if they were expansive portals of the mental universe suggested by the interior.
A central piece of his installation will be thus a sculptural loudspeaker-cum-sound system, which will play ad libitum a selection of vinyl records from the collection of the owner.
As often the case in his work, the sculptural objects present in the show, far from concealing them, ostensibly show the signs of the creative process and of the artist’s dialogue with the matter.
As if to underline the long, delicate process of the incarnation, the translation of narratives, of a concept through an object. As if to suggest that the translation of an original discourse or idea, cannot be encapsulated but in an imperfect or approximate way.
Simultaneously, they act as a sort of semantic portal by themselves, influencing, modelling and giving shape to the idea that they are designed to convey with their own materiality/physicality.
For the shapes and materials chosen by Taylor seem to somehow resist any univocal process of translation. They enhance the poetic potential of the piece by detaining their own independence, as if, conversely, the creative process was also an occasion to give a voice to the spirit of the matter. So let’s listen and let’s do the same, let’s have a seat and listen to some records.
Opening on 26 March 2014, 6 30 p.m.
Exhibition open on Saturdays, 2-6 p.m., 29/03-10/05/2014
Closed on 19/04/2014
