ARTIST STATEMENT

Awarness is the opposite of ignorance Ignorance causes fears Fear leads to intolerance Knowledge brings about awareness

My work is an attempt to inform mainstream society about urban minorities. The majority, powerful in number, consider themselves strong and unique and as a result are prone to forget the wealth of difference which exists in the ghettos that surround them.

In the course of my "chameleon" lifestyle, I find myself amongst urban tribes (black, hindu, buddhist, rap, hip-hop, goth, house, garage, gay, junkie, sex, etc...) which bring me face to face with specific objects-symbols of membership to a given tribe .

This is a card which indicates membership by the affinity show towards it. I displace the item in question and procure it in bulk quantities . It then becomes the raw material for a sculpture or installation. Each sculpture symbolizes an urban tribe. In this way, the mainstream becomes aware of key objects in a lifestyle of which they are completly ignorant.

Familiarizing ourselves with a symbol will open our minds.

Object of Desire,Desire of Object My concern - the unifying theme of my installations - is with objects that represent "urban minorities" in Paris and in New York. An urban minority is a group of persons, living in the city, who share the same minority lifestyle. These people are different from "travelers," who prefer to live outside the society of consumption and go where desire lends them. My "chameleon" lifestyle allows me to jump from one "ghetto" (subculture) to another and to discover unusual objects, ones unknown to the majority of people. When I discover these objects, I buy them in large amounts (by the hundreds) to make sculptures or installations with them.

Two reasons motivate my concern with urban minority objects:
First, my aim is to provide information about "urban minorities" through my works, and not to justify the practices associated with these objects. Information produces knowledge, which leads to awareness, whereas ignorance brings fear, which provokes intolerance. My installations are an attempt to create tolerance for minorities by increasing the majorityís knowledge of minority objects.

Second, I wish to conserve (or curate) the symbolic (emblematic) object. This, simply because I am persuaded that every sort of object is going to disappear from our society.

Why are all the objects going to disappear? The 18th Century was the century of philosophy, the 19th Century was the century of industry, the 20th Century was the century of consumption - but the 21st Century will be the century of Spiritual Direction. When this happens, the "travelers" will form entire tribes, each having its own spiritual direction. (See Manifesto.) For the time being, in 2001, I am working on minorities that are principally urban; the "traveler" phenomenon is in an embryonic stage and "traveler tribes" have not yet arisen.

My installations are the existential memory, present and future, of "urban minorities," "travelers," and "traveler tribes." My present work is about "urban minorities" in Paris and in New York. Then, my next project will involve emblematic "traveler objects."

Finally, I intend to create a series of "traveler tribe" sculptures, made from virtual thoughts. The raw material will consist not of objects anymore, but of thoughts produced with virtual technology (refraction of light and scales of smell). The exhibitions will consist of multiple virtual thoughts and non-concretized, non-material smells.

We are living the last moments of the object. That is why I am saving objects in the form of emblematic installations.

RESUME
ARTIST STATEMENT
MANIFESTO