UN BRUIT SOURD PRÉCÈDE LE SILENCE: Sylvain Ciavaldini

In the great trench of forms lie the ruins to which we still cling, in part. They provide material for abstraction. A construction site of inauthentic elements for the formation of impure crystals. That is where we stand. Paul Klee, Journal [1915], Paris, Grasset, 2004 (1959), p. 329.

Rich as it is, the image is not immediately grasped by my gaze. What, then, am I standing before? A retouched photograph? A drawing? What does it refer to...? Unquestionably to a collapsed architecture, to the remains of a wounded humanity. But for what reason? War? A natural disaster? Or simply time and oblivion? And what are these enigmatic shapes that come to structure the image, to slice through its composition? Let us take our time.

In the 1990s, Sylvain Ciavaldini began to take an interest in the status of the artist, a questioning that led him to interrogate the origins of creation, the significance of the gesture, and the genesis and future of form. Fruitful in nature, his research materializes in two dimensions, through painting or drawing, sometimes breaking free from its flatness to become embodied in space, in three dimensions. For more than twenty years now, through drawing or sculpture, through painting or interventions on photogravures, the artist has been questioning form. Structured or overflowing, purified or proliferating, it is always central, always questioning us. (...)

Sylvain Ciavaldini gathers images of destroyed architecture mostly gleaned from the internet—abandoned places, emptied of any human presence. Using a well-mastered squaring technique, the artist reproduces these spaces on paper. This is the time of the gesture, a work of the hand akin to writing, ultimately a meditation on the trace, an embodiment of memory. Executed in black ink pen, the drawing also possesses something of an engraving, and gradually, through successive hatchings, the image of these neglected architectures takes shape on the white surface of the paper. Then, space calls for form, and at the heart of these places suddenly appears a colorful structure, a simple volume—mathematical—which contrasts sharply with the chaotic proliferation of elements in the surroundings. Beyond the formal rupture caused by this irruption, the geometric volume brings a third level of perception of form to the created image: from the constructed—architectural—form to the destroyed form, we arrive at the projected form, a mental representation.

More recently, Sylvain Ciavaldini decided to strip these projected volumes of their bright colors. On the drawing, areas left in reserve now stand out, immaculate. The geometric shapes thus weave through the landscape of ruins, segmenting it at times, always altering its perception.

The purity of these simple shapes contrasts with the tormented accumulation of the architecture they traverse. The aesthetic of the ruin present here does not harken back to a romantic or melancholy vision, but rather to a fascination with architectural precariousness and the proliferation of elements. The artist finds this almost anarchic formal abundance primarily in the study of favelas. Colors and volumes cluster there with no apparent logic, forming a kind of unstable patchwork, on the verge of collapsing. Ultimately, it is a living, even furious architecture that spreads across space, invading the horizon, piling up and overlapping in an uncontrolled and uncontrollable movement.

This dynamic, which in a certain way transforms form into the formless, or rather unleashes form to reveal the formless, is found within the ruin. Returned to a life of its own and left to nature, the abandoned building begins a period of deconstruction. Through this, it encroaches upon its environment, expanding as its various disintegrated fractions pile up, like a slow wave of miscellaneous materials. Here, form is in constant evolution, endlessly propelled by an internal engine of its own and accompanied by impulses from the outside, offering us a subtle metaphor for artistic practice.

(...)

These places transcribed by Sylvain Ciavaldini, what are they? A painful memory resides within their broken architecture, a feeling of perdition. Naturally, we think of the disasters, both human and natural, that condition our collective imagination in rhythm with current events. We think of awareness and the duty of memory. War and cataclysm. Yet, these considerations are not at the origin of the artist's creative process, though they obviously guide our inner journey. The ruin becomes charged with a political and social dimension; it drags the artwork along with it.

Faced with the work of Sylvain Ciavaldini, we are invited to a journey through form. Thought, perceived, projected, or diverted. Through broken architecture, it regains its freedom, revealing its vitality to us. The insignificant form, the significance of the formless...

Grégoire Prangé