Bien Urbain

Parcours artistiques dans (et avec) l’espace public
Besançon, France
September 6th – October 6th 2012

Project in collaboration with MOMO

This summer MOMO and I were invited to do our fourth collaboration together for the Bien Urbain festival in Besançon, North-East of France. We worked on two exercises: the first one, called Improbables, was an exercise about doing compositions with pieces of wood in unused gaps in the city. The second one is called Peinture au Cordeau Traceur (Paint Snap-Line) and is an adaptation of the traditional chalk line tool. The technique we developed allowed us to trace long lines on a building of almost any height using paint instead of chalk.

www.bien-urbain.fr

Together with Bien Urbain, we edited a zine about these two projects:
www.justeici.bigcartel.com/product/momo-eltono-zine-poster.

Improbables

We came up with this idea after noticing a lot of small, unused spaces on walls all around the city. After collecting scrap wood, we loaded up our cart with the wood and our tools. Then, as we walked around the city, we installed simple wooden compositions in every gap we found interesting. All the pieces were put into place using only tension – no nails nor glue were used. The end result were 52 installations found all around the “Battant” quarter in Besançon. On an individual level, the pieces were quite discreet and often looked like some cheap repair work; but when people started noticing the series, they immediately realized that something was happening… We were amazed by how intact the pieces remained and how slowly they disappeared. The hardest part of this project was to try to make the installations NOT look like pieces of art.

Peinture au Cordeau Traceur

(Paint Snap-Line)

For this project, we used the traditional chalk line tracer tool as our inspiration and conducted experiments eventually developing a similar tool that enabled us to mark long straight lines on buildings with paint. After a few drawings, we came out with a design and using the material available to us in Bien Urbain’s basement, we built the artifact. We did three tests, threw paint everywhere and finally came up with a satisfactory result.

Pictures by Sierra, MOMO and Eltono.
Thanks to David, Lucile and to the whole Bien Urbain crew.

Caballo Caballo Tigre Tigre – 马马虎虎

Sanlitun North Street 81, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China
May 2012
Organized by Migas with the support of the Instituto Cervantes de Pekín and Nali Patio

The third Equipo Plastico’s exhibition was held in Beijing. As usual now, we stayed for a month residency, walking, visiting and observing the city. We created artworks inspired in our daily experiences. Unlike the previous two exhibitions, in Peru and Mexico, in China we faced a cultural and linguistic barrier much bigger; but that barrier did nothing but turn the project into a more intense and enriching experience.

The complete documentation about the project is published on the official Equipo Plástico website: www.equipoplastico.com/projects/caballo-caballo-tigre-tigre/caballo-caballo-tigre-tigre-en

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Billboard Appropriation

Utrecht, Netherlands
March 2012

Project in collaboration with Stickit

Action video:

Process pictures:

Thanks Wood, Mores, Merijn Hos, Tibor Kocsis and Stijn Jansen!

TRACES

Ongoing project
Started in September 2011

I have always been fascinated by all the marks, traces and treads that our daily movements leave throughout a city. The idea behind TRACES is to observe and somehow try to register these types of marks. For this purpose, I am working on some experiments that allow for the possible appearance of shapes and lines by exploiting these daily movements.

The first experiment is called Gravure au sol (ground engraving). The idea was to generate graphic works using the city as a studio. The four first attempts with a satisfactory result were executed on the asphalt of three streets (one in France and two in China) registering the passage of cars, motorbikes, bikes and a few pedestrians.

TRACES – experiment 1: Gravure au sol #1

Asphalt engraving on card, 18 cm x 28 cm.
13/09/2011 from 14h25 to 20h20, road D54, France.
Most of the marks were left by cars.

TRACES – experiment 1: Gravure au sol #2

Asphalt engraving on Canson Paper, 18 cm x 28 cm.
14/09/2011 from 9h32 to 16h54, road D54, France.
Most of the marks were left by cars.

TRACES – experiment 1: Gravure au sol #3

Asphalt engraving on Sumiaozhi-8K 160g Paper, 18 cm x 28 cm.
19/10/2011 from 15h00 to 16h19, 学院路 (Xueyuanlu), Beijing, China.
Most of the marks were left by bikes and bicycles.

TRACES – experiment 1: Gravure au sol #4

Asphalt engraving on Sumiaozhi-8K 160g Paper, 18 cm x 28 cm.
24/10/2011 from 15h48 to 16h45, 展春园西路 (Zhanchunyuanxilu), Beijing, China.
Most of the marks were left by cars.

I am in the process of conducting further experiments at this time. As soon as I obtain some more interesting results, I will post more examples.

As the results for these first experiments from the TRACES project are recoverable, they will be available for purchase, with my other graphic works, at the Boutique on this website.

Tiensestraat

M van Museum
Leuven, Belgium
July 2011

Tiensestraat

Project in collaboration with MOMO

During summer 2011, I was invited to Leuven, Belgium, to participate in the first edition of Outomatic. This outdoor art festival was made possible by help from the M van Museum. Hans, the festival organizer, told me about all the empty flag posts visible throughout the city streets, and I instantaneously loved the idea to use them for a project. As I knew that MOMO was also participating in the festival, I asked him if he would like to collaborate with me using a process similar to the one we used during the PLAF project to design flags. We prepared 50 flags during the first five days and we hung them the sixth day in the afternoon. It took us a couple of hours to hang the flags and we worked without any kind of permit. This project is called Tiensestraat because it is named after the street where we put the flags. Today, while writing this page, more than a month after the installation, the flags are still flying…

Video:

50 flags video:

Pictures:

We also painted a mural inside the M van Museum:

Thanks to Hans and the M van Museum.

Outomatic

M van Museum
Leuven, Belgium
July 2011

Tiensestraat

Project in collaboration with MOMO

During summer 2011, I was invited to Leuven, Belgium, to participate in the first edition of Outomatic. This outdoor art festival was made possible by help from the M van Museum. Hans, the festival organizer, told me about all the empty flag posts visible throughout the city streets, and I instantaneously loved the idea to use them for a project. As I knew that MOMO was also participating in the festival, I asked him if he would like to collaborate with me using a process similar to the one we used during the PLAF project to design flags. We prepared 50 flags during the first five days and we hung them the sixth day in the afternoon. It took us a couple of hours to hang the flags and we worked without any kind of permit. This project is called Tiensestraat because it is named after the street where we put the flags. Today, while writing this page, more than a month after the installation, the flags are still flying…

Video:

50 flags video:

Pictures:

We also painted a mural inside the M van Museum:

Thanks to Hans and the M van Museum.

Automatic Painting

Art Re-Public Festival
Yoyogi Park, Harajuku,Tokyo, Japan
May 5th 2011

My last visit to Japan coincided with the Art Re-Public festival organized by my friend Yusaku. Over the past few years this festival has taken place in the streets of Tokyo to celebrate “Kodomo No Hi” or Children’s Day, an annual celebration throughout Japan. This year however, the festival took place in Yoyogi park in Harajuku.

I was offered the opportunity to do an installation at the event and decided to take advantage of the presence of so many children to do an experiment with one of my automatic painting projects. Four stations were prepared where people (mostly children) could choose randomly between 9 figures, 6 colors, 8 orientations and 289 positions. This choice was determined through a series of simple games. The experiment lasted 5 hours during which 85 people participated and 86 figures were painted.

Video:

Photos:

This project would not have been possible without the help of Sierra Forest and the invitation and hospitality of Yusaku and his family. Thanks!

Modular Do Lage

Nova Cultura Contempôranea
Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
March 21st – April 30th 2011

Project in collaboration with MOMO
www.vimeopro.com/rojo/nova-rio2011

In April 2011, I participated in Nova Rio Contemporary Culture, an event organized by Rojo in Rio de Janeiro. My friend (and artist whom I greatly admire) MOMO was also one of the artists invited. The organizers suggested we work together to produce an installation that would be exhibited at the Parque Lage. I had visited the Parque Lage six years before and it always struck me as one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in Brazil. So of course I was very excited when I heard that I was going to have the opportunity to create art in this amazing place together with (for the second time) MOMO!

We had access to a workshop in a building within the School of Visual Arts (which is located in a palace in the middle of the park) and a large amount of unused wood. We started thinking about using this wood in different ways, always keeping in mind that we would construct something non-static and movable. Then we started working on the idea of a modular sculpture that could change constantly. After various tests with different models, we manufactured 23 pieces of wood that could be joined together in a variety of ways. Each piece was designed to fit with any or all of the other pieces. However, we soon found that the possibilities were limited by the condition of the wood, so we tried all the combinations that gravity allowed in the vicinity of our workshop, the gardens and the park. After a week we left four sculptures in the jungle to spend time with the local fauna!

Video:

Photos:

Thank you very much David, the whole team and all the Nova artists.