Jean-François Coadou

Begun in 2000, the current series of silent sculptures, some of which are presented here, is the provisional outcome of an exploration of madness. It is the logical outcome of a work on chaos, authoritarian architecture, and more precisely barriers (garde-fou in French, which suggests the idea of protecting the fool from himself).
Contrary to the barriers, metonymies whose real and obvious function as obstacles which implicitly separate space into authorized and forbidden territories provoked reactions on the spectator's part ranging from obedience to infringement, the silent sculptures expect no response and provoke no participation on the part of the public. Horizontal and definitive, as heavy as prayer is light, as mute as the complaint is loud, they require the excluded spectator's simple observation.
Built around the fundamental hole they shore up, they strive after silence, and are in this respect metaphorically active, despite their defunct appearance.
Their growing number is justified only by the quest for an increasingly growing efficiency of contentment, for the hOle that precedes them, that triggers their production and without whom they would never exist, is continuously and dangerously expanding.

Jean-François Coadou, 2002