The Espace Louis Vuitton may well have been open since 2006 in Paris close to the top of the Champs Elysées, but I knew nothing about it. It was going through all the exhibitions on in and around Paris yesterday. This artist caught my eye. So off I went.
It’s a strange beginning. You get into a lift which will black out completely while you ride to the seventh floor. Of course you are told and those few seconds are to rush you from exterior noise and stress and then into another world. The space is over 450 square metres on the top floor of the Maison Louis Vuitton. It has to date, shown the works of more than 250 French and International visual arts. Apparently there are « Conversations » held in the Kitchen (???) regularly and which give the opportunity to listen to artists talk about their work with curators, art critics and even Philosophers.
But I had been drawn to an artist called Alice Anderson. She’s a Brit and 44. She now lives and works in London however, she also worked for a year at the Beaux-Arts In Paris (1998).
Her installations are called
Data Space and from what I could see, they were pretty unique. What she had said - fascinated me.
« The digital revolution is probably going to turn out as decisive for the mechanisms of human memory as the invention of writing was. This revolution is a fascinating process, and I keep tabs on it by crystallizing its phases »
It was during the course of her research on physical objects from contemporary life that she developed a unique weaving technique, winding copper wire taken from inside an electric alarm clock around specific objects. This was the trigger for what I was about to see.
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| Her working tools |
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| The other end of the table |
There are videos of her working an in actual fact giving shows of this winding action around the object for an unspecified period of time. The movements, her’s and the people who are with her, are never exactly the same. It’s as if the copper wire becomes an extension of the body - even you could go as far as saying - human thought. At the end of the performance the object reveals itself as a sculpture.
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| A car, would you believe |
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| Working on the above |
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| Video |
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| Video |
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| Made during a video |
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| Other objects |
This is what I saw.
There is no nostalgia in her approach but rather a desire to create new time capsules and constant movement. Endless research I would think.
She even did drawings winding the wire onto paper or board as she walked around it.
I was offered a beautiful bound catalogue as I entered the blackened lift. It had been a magical moment.
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