Arte Continua is pleased to present “PÉTALOS DE PIEDRA”, by Cameroonian artist Pascale Marthine Tayou. The piece is an intervention that interacts with the exhibition “MIRADOR CIRCULAR”, which displays the works of Cuban artists Alejandro Campins, Iván Capote, Yoan Capote, Elizabet Cerviño, Carlos Garaicoa, Osvaldo González, Luis López-Chávez, José Mesías, Susana Pilar and José Yaque.
Tayou feels a special affection for Cuba, so much so that he has dedicated a cascade of stone petals to the country. Pieces of debris have been scattered around the gallery threatening the serenity of the previous exhibit, interrupting the works and invading the space. But let us not be confused by such chaos; within the apparent homogeneity of the array, each fragment is unique in that one of the surfaces has been painted with a distinctive tone. These rocks hold the potential for rebirth, they are tricky happenings inviting us to play a game.
For Tayou,...color has several levels of significance. He celebrates life through its very presence and allows it to change his mood, like taking a vitamin. At the same time, he uses it as a vehicle through which to talk about diversity and inclusion. For him, it is a space for joy as much as a language for activism.
The contrast between the rugged matter and the colorful surfaces allows him to allude to the challenges, contradictions and struggles that humanity has gone through for the sake of prosperity and growth: “The life that we all lead is enveloped by a terrifying darkness. So one always has to have the courage to bring out the light”*.
Since the early 1990s, Pascale Marthine Tayou has been a major artist on the international scene, with his participation in Documenta 11 in Kassel (2002) and in the Venice Biennale (2005 and 2009). His work shows great diversity because he does not confine himself to either a medium or a particular issue. The quality shared by all the objects, sculptures, installations, drawings and videos produced by Pascale Marthine Tayou is their interest in the individual, exploring the question of the global village, always beginning with the artist and his own story, questioning his African origins and the expectations related to them.
*Pascale Marthine Tayou, in an interview by Louise Hauerberg in 2016.
Pascale Marthine Tayou was born in Nkongsamba, Cameroon in 1966. He lives and works in Ghent, Belgium and in Yaoundé, Cameroon.Ever since the beginning of the 1990’s and his participation in Documenta 11 (2002) in Kassel and at the Venice Biennale (2005 and 2009) Pascale Marthine Tayou has been known to a broad international public. His work is characterized by its variability, since he confines himself in his artistic work neither to one medium nor to a particular set of issues. While his themes may be various, they all use the artist himself as a person as their point of departure. Already at the very outset of his career, Pascale Marthine Tayou added an “e” to his first and middle name to give them a feminine ending, thus distancing himself ironically from the importance of artistic authorship and male/female ascriptions. This holds for any reduction to a specific geographical or cultural origin as well. His works not only mediate in this sense between cultures, or set man and nature in ambivalent relations to each other, but are produced in the knowledge that they are social, cultural, or political constructions. His work is deliberately mobile, elusive of pre-established schema, heterogeneous. It is always closely linked to the idea of travel and of coming into contact with what is other to self, and is so spontaneous that it almost seems casual. The objects, sculptures, installations, drawings and videos produced by Tayou have a recurrent feature in common: they dwell upon an individual moving through the world and exploring the issue of the global village. And it is in this context that Tayou negotiates his African origins and related expectations.
Entrada actualizada el el 12 jul de 2022
¿Te gustaría añadir o modificar algo de este perfil?
