Sébastien de Ganay »Space on the Move«

In his second solo show at Häusler Contemporary Zürich, Sébastien de Ganay presents new series of works that explore the border between picture and object, inspiring the public’s imagination. The exhibition once again shows that de Ganay’s optically seductive works are based on observations from daily life, from philosophy, politics and art.
With a brisk appetite for innovation and a consequent attitude, artist Sébastien de Ganay (*1962, lives in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg, AT) aims to overcome the boarder between picture and object, between high and low art. He wants the viewer to participate in the artwork. The three series of wooden chair sculptures which de Gangay recently designed in cooperation with Lawrence Weiner, Rirkrit Tiravanija and John Baldessari are an example for this approach. In «Space on the Move», Häusler Contemporary Zürich now presents new wall pieces and sculptures by de Ganay that challenge the public’s mind. It becomes apparent how the artist incorporates social and philosophical themes into the vivid appearance of his works.
A playful attitude especially unfolds from the relief-like wall works of the «Folded Flat» series, started in 2015: diverse colored aluminum plates are folded in the manner of origami. The viewer is reminded of everyday paper folds, while at the same time, this comparison is subverted by the wall objects’ apparent stiff material which cannot be identified at first. Yet we inevitably imagine the gesture that led to the artwork.
These folding gestures especially appear in the mind’s eye when facing a series of five objects that visualize the gradual folding process of an aluminum sheet that was plane at first. With this ensemble, the artist references Eadweard Muybridge, the famous pioneer of chronophotography who investigated motion sequences of men and animals. De Ganay on the other hand explores our »mental agility« and confronts us with »stills of sculpted time« (de Ganay).
The new »non-place« sculptures similarly challenge our imagination: two aluminum replica of cardboard boxes are telescoped in such a way that they merge seamlessly where they meet. A virtual space emerges from this transition zone that never quite reveals itself to the viewer. It is bare of distinct contours – it is a »non-place«. The small-scale objects’ title already indicates that this indefinable zone is charged with metaphorical value: de Ganay thus refers to our globalized world’s «non-places» as named by anthropologist Marc Augé in 1992 – shopping malls, highways, airports, waiting rooms. These places all are characterized by a short-term and unsteady meeting of diverse realities, they are bare of identity.
Hence, our exhibition again makes clear how Sébastien de Ganay draws inspiration from philosophical, geo-political, art historical and social fields in order to question perceptual processes and categorizations in general. His formal vocabulary incorporates the sensual and the minimalist, the representational and the abstract, the everyday and the exclusive. This makes de Ganay one of today’s most original representatives of experimental painting and sculpture.