LES CHOSES : Christian Gonzenbach

Christian Gonzenbach creates works that question our relationship between the material world to ordinary objects. For this new exhibition at galerie Sator, he presents several bodies of works. Created through his offbeat gaze, he explores the objects of today as well as those of yesterday, while questioning what makes us profoundly human.

Hanabi

Molten aluminum is poured into a porcelain vase. The vase cracks, while the aluminum passes through its formerly impermeable walls to congeal into excrescences, as a frozen explosion. Within this transformation lies the essence of life, the energy, a breath which makes this metamorphosis possible. The vase’s décor - clouds, mountains, rivers - reflects this constant flow ; Clouds appear and hide mountains, rivers flow, forming lakes. In this process, the molten aluminum passes through the vase, explodes, then congeals and freezes until it crystallizes. The sculptor’s work is an extension of the painter’s :  the landscape bursts out of the vase into space. The outcome is a series in constant evolution.

Domesticating fire

Car, motorcycle and van engines, staunchly reproduced in ceramic, drip orange-red enamel onto a charcoal-black background. These sculptures evoke giant embers, alive and bleeding. The history of mankind could be summed up in a prolonged domestication of fire : from the first rubbing of flint to gas-fired power stations and the internal combustion engine. Fire, omnipresent in our world, conceals itself in heating, transport, construction, agriculture... Ubiquitous, an invisible fire triggers superior forces. Produced in baked clay - the material itself born as an outcome of mastering fire. This series of engines seems to be made up of organs ripped from larger machines, embedded in fluid systems : diesel, oil, gasoline, water, etc.

Plantas Botánicas Plásticas

A peculiar garden flourishes in the gallery : flowers, orchids, cacti and other domestic plants may remind the viewer of its living room, but here they have been transposed into LEGO, then cast in bronze. Hybrid, absurd and magnificent all at once, these sculptures call into question the categories of the natural and the artificial, which were considered evident. 

Tanatorio per animales y mascotas

The animal kingdom is expressed here in the form of cuddly toys, companions of our early years. Hanging on the gallery walls, dozens of copper animal masks stare back at the viewer, reminiscent of the hammered gold death masks discovered in the excavations at Mycenae. These copper-plate faces, thinner as decayed leaves, bring up questions such as ; what are those funerary rituals for polyester animals symbols ? How can we preserve the memory of things, like our childhood, that are doomed to disappear?

Gonzenbach’s world unfolds throughout the gallery ; He transposes one reality into another, transforms materials, deconstructs conventions and blurs the boundaries between the natural and the artificial. His creations, playful yet profound, produce strangely moving objects.