François Perrodin

François Perrodin, “90.1”, 2023, 54 x 54 x 9 cm, Wood Acryl Paint

“Life is form, and form is the mode of life.”

(Henri Focillon, The Life of Forms, 1934)

One of the many qualities of art is that of being able to shape the way we see. In this, art inscribes in its history the succession and diversity of ways of seeing. And art carries the attempts at the definition and redefinition of these ways which will then, more or less effectively, find their place in the diversity and evolution of the world. It is through forms that art inscribes these attempts in the world. It is through form that an intention is able to link up the possibilities of existence and meaning. From that moment we can consider that the form has the potential to affect us all, that it is an element that redefines the world as much as it tries to tell or represent it. It seems to me that we must consider the form as the result of processes of construction, both physical and mental. Those physical and mental dimensions cannot be separated. We find these dimensions in the specificity of the materials used, in the assemblies that connect the parts, in the relationship of the parts to the whole. It is the fact of laying down this particular set that is a form, as a whole and in the specificity of its articulations, which makes possible the appearance of a particular signifying and symbolic dimension.

François Perrodin, “91.10”, 2023, Ink on paper, 150 x 120 cm, “91.11”, 2023, Ink on paper, 150 x 120 cm

The appearance of form in art is never a fixed system but always the result of links in perpetual mutation. These articulations, both internal in the structure of the object and external in the relation-ships they set up, are what allow this complex assembly that is called a space, in its general and shared dimensions, but also its most particular and individual ones. Identical elements combined in different ways refer to different spaces. A particular articulation will create a particular form, which will refer to the specific construction that is the space in which we exist. We notice this space and question its validity and evolution in our encounters with the forms. This acquaintance, and the articulations and relationships it highlights, are fundamental to my work. The form plays the central role of a construction always considered in its relations with space and the spectator. It has the primary function of an activator and sets up a dynamic that makes the relations between form, spectator, and space constantly question the links that unite them in the moment of the gaze. It is above all a question of a spectator who, looking at the form, experiences the appearance of space, and therefore of highlighting the issues involved in the construction of the gaze.

Song Art Gallery
B133 Acrovista Arcade, 188, Seochojungang-ro, Seocho-gu, Seoul
02-3482-7096

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