Event Horizon
Jean-Marie Appriou
October 22, 2021 – November 11, 2021
GALLERY HOURS :11:00 – 19:00
GALLERY CLOSED：
SUNDAYS, MONDAYS, PUBLIC HOLIDAYS
*We will be participating in Art Week Tokyo from 11/4 (Thu) to 11/7 (Sun).
Gallery will be open from 10:00 on each day, and will also be open on the 7th (Sun).
※This exhibition is now concluded.
Thank you to all the many people who stopped by.
※PLEASE NOTE THAT ENTRY MAY BE RESTRICTED IF THE NUMBER OF VISITORS EXCEEDS THE MAXIMUM CAPACITY.
Kaikai Kiki Gallery is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of French artist Jean-Marie Appriou in Japan. Jean-Marie Appriou develops a reflection around the sculpture of which he appropriates the traditional know-how to better divert them and to extend their potentialities. Alone or with the help of qualified craftsmen, he explores – together or separately – materials such as aluminum, glass, bronze or clay in unconventional processes. From his alchemical experiments, emerge human, animal and plant figures that answer and complement each other, giving rise to different scenarios. This fantastic and marvelous universe, sometimes disturbing, feeds on various inspirations, ranging from Egyptian mythology to Pre-Raphaelite painting, from Science Fiction literature to cinema and comics.
In this exhibition, the artist will present two new series of works based on the themes of astronauts and sea creatures. We hope you will enjoy Jean-Marie Appriou’s mysterious worldview as it is expressed in the space of Kaikai Kiki Gallery.
We look forward to welcoming you at the gallery.
Callisto, 2020, ©︎Jean-Marie Appriou Courtesy of the artist, Photo:Benjamin Baltis
Text by Seungduk Kim
When the shrimps are alive, they are translucent like a piece of glass.
When the shrimps are cooked, they are pink as a pale rose petal.
Shrimp sashimi keeps the translucency of the glass.
Jean-Marie Appriou is a young French sculptor. He was born in the extreme west part of French country, where the sea is under heavy wind and storms, and the land dissolves itself into oblivion. He is going to be the next star in the sculptural landscape of contemporary art. Isn’t he not yet this next star?
Appriou is into animals, is into human figures fell from an unlimited sky to be cast into frozen marching characters: young astronauts modeled as profile-like Egyptian priests wearing a blown colored glass helmet.
The sculptures are often covered by details of stacked sea snails, with sea stars and other small shelves. Cast in aluminium, as unique pieces, they travel at ease all along Appriou bodies of work.
Making sculptures by hands – and his hands know quite a bit how to do the modeling in the clay–, is a bet for an artist born in 1986.
Aluminium cast, blown glass, bronze in colored patina, copper etchings and more to come as his hunger for techniques and manners is endless and could be seen as provider for new subjects and stories to tell and organize all along walls and outdoor sets.
The craftsman, the thinker, the organizer, the controller, the formal planner, the strategy planner, the distributor, the seducer, the artist at the end… is not a company but a pool of collaborators to be in full confidence with.
Arrogance is not a pose, neither naughtiness, but rather a statement towards the world and towards the history of art and generally towards culture and sciences, towards the great narratives of civilizations.
Mythologies and legends are interwoven in numbers of his sculptural pieces in such a way that the animals (horses, butterflies, snakes…, seahorses, shark, octopus, shrimps and cuttlefish…) and plants (corns and brambles…) became the eternal companions to the human figures (Jonas, Ophelia… astronauts, beekeepers) for intemporal narratives to be completed by the viewers at his/ her own desire and intelligence.
At the invitation of Takashi Murakami and the Kaikai Kiki gallery, Appriou will deliver and install two series of works: a series of young astronauts in different poses, and a series of modest sea animals: shrimps, and cuttlefishes.
The astronauts swim out of the deep oceans to reach the sky and our bright future. They are seating, they are walking, but do they know where they will ending up to?
Titan, 2020, ©︎Jean-Marie Appriou Courtesy of the artist, Photo:Benjamin Baltis
As precautionary measures to help contain the further spread of COVID-19, visitors are asked to wear masks and sanitize their hands before entering the gallery.
(Hand sanitizer is available at the entrance. Visitors without masks will be refused entry.)
Please refrain from visiting the gallery if you have any symptoms such as fever or cough.
Our staff will also adopt frequent hand sanitation and wear masks. The gallery will be routinely ventilated and high-touch areas will be regularly disinfected.
＊Please check our website or Instagram for the latest information regarding opening hours, as the gallery schedule is subject to abrupt change due to unpredictable circumstances.
Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.
