Jeanne Tzaut

Jeanne Tzaut was born in 1981 in Montpellier. She lives and works in Bordeaux.

Through strolling, Jeanne Tzaut encounters forms and situations, products and archetypes of our occupations which lie at the root of her output. The figure of the walker is never directly visible in her work but nevertheless thoroughly present during its installation, throughout this research into moments, be they unusual, rare or insignificant. She thus extracts zones and fragments of reality, trying to mix an established fact and a desire for transformation. She derives forms from existing worlds which she modifies by making shifts, with a desire to kindle/rekindle a scene.

“Jeanne Tzaut’s interest in the deconstruction of forms, uses and spaces seen in the urban space also reflects her curiosity about the historical implications of sculpture in general. The overall nature of certain works illustrates her interest in pictorial compositions, the assemblages and constructions of the avant-gardes, the minimal sculpture of the 1960s, the Neo-Geo movement and the Düsseldorf Academy of the 1980s with Ludger Gerdes and Thomas Schütte, but here, referring to the issue of autonomy dear to some of these predecessors, what is also and at the same time involved is pointing out the partial and appropriationist dimension of the artifact, the imminently transitory nature of its significance. Tending towards an autonomous language is above all, for this artist, an invitation to attract the gaze towards a sort of psychological and cultural bareness, a distancing, in order to incarnate other forms of contacts and emotions.”

Excerpt from an essay by Corinne Domer, Documents d’artistes Nouvelle-Aquitaine, 2015.
Translated by Simon Pleasance, 2015