Lilian Bourgeat

21 June—31 August 2019

Galerie lange + pult is pleased to present the solo exhibition of new sculptures by the French artist Lilian Bourgeat.

Lilian Bourgeat’s work, as it began during the nineties, is characterised by a constant search for and over use of games and jokes. The artist squeezes an ever caustic humor into the colourful and seductive universe created by his « hyperrealistic » oversized objects. His sculptures are conceived as real traps, they attract us with their playful aspect and instantly lure and confuse us. The scale of these objects keep them on the threshold between the probability of using them and excessiveness. Even if they reveal an unseen formal quality through the whole process of their transformation, what is at the heart of Lilian Bourgeat’s work are the deceiving situations implied by the use, be it real or potential, of these oversized objects.

The works of Lilian Bourgeat deprive objects of everyday life of their original context through scale enlargement and perfect reproduction – they interfere with the self-image of utility. As blow-ups alienated, they subtly allude to the ambivalence between exclusive monumentality and cheap mass-produced goods.

Sometimes pure enlargement is enough to transform the real into a caricature: Whether a light bulb, a red rope, an aluminium knot, a spirograph, an inner ear, or a corkscrew – the oversize alone forces the viewer to reflect on his everyday, trivial actions: For example, it requires a considerable effort to climb the huge rocking chair to take a seat on its expansive seat; the yellow Bottes, two rubber boots three meters high, are degraded to uselessness by their size; the “immoderation” of rice purposes and light bulbs causes them to be misappropriated, even transformed into three-dimensional installation objects. With his subtle irony, Bourgeat destabilizes given everyday situations, for once makes the world fall apart and reveals the transience of an artificially created world.

The situations in which the viewer sees himself interacting with Lilian Bourgeat’s works resemble thus a game with broken conventions: Unadapted to the monumentality of the objects, the viewer becomes a toy of them, even being deprived of the power over them taken for granted. It is not the objects that are useless because of their size, but rather the human being seems inappropriate and out of place. With his subtle irony Bourgeat destabilizes given everyday situations, makes the world fall apart and shows the transience of an artificially created world.

Therefore, the immediate seduction caused by enlarged objects, perfectly reproduced in form and material, the entertaining aspect for kids from 3 to 103 years old, are only forgeries. The paradigm makes of course that the spectator looses his usual mastery. But moreover, the devices imagined by Lilian Bourgeat snub the spectator, aggressing him, pushing him away from the exhibition space, making him understand that he is not allowed inside. Lilian Bourgeat does not pretend to reenchant the world. It is the moral of an art which designates the vanities and amuses itself of the daily situations. After this period of probation, we become… bigger.

Bourgeat was born in 1970 in Saint-Claude (France). He lives and works in Dijon (France). Lilian Bourgeat has, in addition to numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world, realised various public space projects in recent years, including Neuchâtel, Lyon, Tours, Paris or Nemours. His works are represented in numerous French public collections, such as FNAC, FRAC Bourgogne, FRAC Pays de la Lore and FRAC Limousin, as well as in the collections of the Consortium in Dijon and the CCC in Tours.