Raphaël Zarka: Sculpture Gnomonique

4 November - 23 December 2022

  • Raphaël Zarka 

    A Time for Forms

     

    Those who enter the porte cochère of 79 rue du Temple (home to Galerie Mitterrand) may notice a 17th-century sundial on the upper facade of the hotel de Montmort. Should they choose to venture into the gallery’s exhibition space, they will discover several more such timepieces, without having to lift their gaze to do so. In Sculpture Gnomonique, Raphaël Zarka leads visitors into a unique observatory comprised of 17th-century French and British sundials, although their sculptural and pictorial transformation has stripped them of any gnomonic function. As far back as 1641, this Parisian venue played host to scientific meetings that led to the creation of the Academy of Sciences. These gatherings were organised by Henri Louis Montmort, owner of the famous Galilean astronomical telescope. What better place to give a second life to these scientific instruments that link us to the cosmos? While the scientific past of this venue must have a certain appeal for Zarka, his interest in the history of science and astronomy is no recent phenomenon. Since 2001, he has been studying rhombicuboctahedrons[1], Archimedean solids, the complexity of which he finds fascinating. It was over the course of these studies that Zarka discovered enigmatic sundials in both the British countryside and the Vosges mountains of France, which served as a starting point for his series of gnomonic sculptures.


    [1] A rhombicuboctahedron is a polyhedron with 26 sides (made up of 8 triangles and 18 squares). Zarka has recorded over 200 of them in his Catalogue raisonnée des rhombicuboctaèdres (Analytical Inventory of Rhombicuboctahedrons), the 5th edition of which was published in 2019.

  • Two new specimens of gnomonic monuments have expanded the artist’s repertoire: Woodhouselee (2022), from a sundial that originally adorned the... Two new specimens of gnomonic monuments have expanded the artist’s repertoire: Woodhouselee (2022), from a sundial that originally adorned the... Two new specimens of gnomonic monuments have expanded the artist’s repertoire: Woodhouselee (2022), from a sundial that originally adorned the...

    Two new specimens of gnomonic monuments have expanded the artist’s repertoire: Woodhouselee (2022), from a sundial that originally adorned the gardens of Old Woodhouselee Castle in Scotland; and L’Oisellerie (2022), from the Château de l’Oisellerie in the Charente region of France. These two original instruments, at once ornamental sculptures and functional objects, share the common denominators of being made of stone and comprised of imbricated polyhedrons, the surfaces of which are covered with mysterious motifs that emerge like an esoteric language comprised of circles, hearts, triangles, crosses, and trapeziums. For these two new sculptures, bronze was used in place of stone. While the sundials no longer retain any functional purpose, the exact form of the originals has been preserved. That said, Zarka has avoided making simple replicas by incorporating an additional reference into his sculptures: their base is in fact an oak-and-limestone reproduction of an English sundial from the same period. 

  • Like rhombicuboctahedrons, the gnomonic monuments sought by the artist belong to the history of forms as well as the history... Like rhombicuboctahedrons, the gnomonic monuments sought by the artist belong to the history of forms as well as the history... Like rhombicuboctahedrons, the gnomonic monuments sought by the artist belong to the history of forms as well as the history...

    Like rhombicuboctahedrons, the gnomonic monuments sought by the artist belong to the history of forms as well as the history of science, and embody the ambivalence that underscores Zarka’s artistic language: his sculptures offer a constant back-and-forth between form and history, between sculptural art and the reference that mediatises the precedent. Similarly, in Abstraction gnomonique n° 11 (2020), a monumental painting transforming the various engraved shapes in the stone of the sundials as colourful motifs now scattered randomly over a black background like a constellation of stars, Zarka’s art has the merit of subtly giving us a double reminder: history produces pure forms; pure forms have a history.

  • This duality is affirmed once more in Great Fosters 1 and 2 (2022), Woodhouse Lee 1 and 2 (2022), Fombrauge... This duality is affirmed once more in Great Fosters 1 and 2 (2022), Woodhouse Lee 1 and 2 (2022), Fombrauge... This duality is affirmed once more in Great Fosters 1 and 2 (2022), Woodhouse Lee 1 and 2 (2022), Fombrauge...

    This duality is affirmed once more in Great Fosters 1 and 2 (2022), Woodhouse Lee 1 and 2 (2022), Fombrauge 1 and 2 (2022), and Lavaur (2022), which, following the example of Abstractions gnomoniques, offer a bi-dimensional destiny to archetypal monuments. Each drawing was made using dozens of laser-cut cardboard fragments painted with brown, saffron, or ochre-coloured ink; once assembled, like marquetry, the fragments recreate the sundial they represent while respecting the rules of parallel or axonometric perspective. Marquetry, a technique usually associated with the decorative arts, becomes the support In Zarka’s work to represent an object that belongs to scientific history. Here again, an interplay between form and history. Clearly, the use of marquetry here should not come as a surprise; for while this technique is associated with ornamentation, it also played an essential role in the development of perspective during the Renaissance: marquetry and perspectiva artificialis share a common concern for the geometricizing of space.

  • In Études pour une forme quelconque (d’après Sebastiano Serlio) (2020) and Suites serliennes (2022), marquetry has given way to charcoal, not in celebration of the perspectivist thinking of cinquecento architect Sebastiano Serlio; rather, to honour the simplicity of some of Serlio’s forms, devoid of all mathematical complexity, through a series of large abstract drawings on ochre[1] backgrounds depicting fragments of diagrams taken from his book On Geometry, On Perspective (1545). Perspective is forgotten once and for all, and time stops in the mural? (2022) painted by the duo Hippolyte Hentgen[2], invited by Zarka to participate in his exhibition. The work features decorative motifs taken from the Scottish sundial, fragmented using simplified line on a moiré-patterned background that plays of the velvety aspect of the charcoal in the Suite serlienne.

    Upon leaving the exhibition, it is a sure bet that visitors—now infused by Zarka’s referenced formalism[3]—will see the sundial at 79 rue du Temple from a whole new perspective.

     

    Marjolaine Lévy


    [2] This colour was generated by rubbing architectural fragments (roof tiles) and Gallo-roman ceramics on paper. This series of fragmented objects that Zarka applied as tools comes from the archaeological site of Lattara (in Lattes, France). They were collected during an artistic residence in 2018 that led to the exhibition Spolium (curated by Nicolas Bourriaud and Diane Dusseaux).

    [3] Born respectively in 1977 and 1980, Gaëlle Hippolyte and Lina Hentgen live and work in Paris. This is not the first time that Zarka has invited other artists to produce a mural painting in one of his exhibitions. Since 2016, Zarka and English painter Christian Hidaka have been co-creating shared exhibition projects in which the former’s sculptures enter into a dialogue with the latter’s frescos.

    [4] Regarding his works, Zarka himself speaks of “frustrated formalism” and “a historicised approach to forms”. C. Gallois, Interview with Raphaël Zarka, Paris, B42, 2012, p. 200.

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