Simon Feydieu

"As a sculptor, I take as a postulate the fact that architecture has existed before the work. So my sculptures are based on manufacturing procedures which are adapted to the specific features of the space they occupy. In a connection with a poor art, plants, fruit, found objects, and borrowed works all interact with raw materials. These elements enable me to make the preparation of the work visible. The architectonics and the chemistry of the building meet domestic activities (gardening, cooking, sewing, pets). It is the whole prism of the dwelling, from the shell to the decoration, which I summon up by associating techniques belonging to distinct trades.
As a sculptor, I take as a postulate the fact that architecture has existed before the work. So my sculptures are based on manufacturing procedures which are adapted to the specific features of the space they occupy. In a connection with a poor art, plants, fruit, found objects, and borrowed works all interact with raw materials. These elements enable me to make the preparation of the work visible. The architectonics and the chemistry of the building meet domestic activities (gardening, cooking, sewing, pets). It is the whole prism of the dwelling, from the shell to the decoration, which I summon up by associating techniques belonging to distinct trades.
As a sculptor, I take as a postulate the fact that architecture has existed before the work. So my sculptures are based on manufacturing procedures which are adapted to the specific features of the space they occupy. In a connection with a poor art, plants, fruit, found objects, and borrowed works all interact with raw materials. These elements enable me to make the preparation of the work visible. The architectonics and the chemistry of the building meet domestic activities (gardening, cooking, sewing, pets). It is the whole prism of the dwelling, from the shell to the decoration, which I summon up by associating techniques belonging to distinct trades.
In my collages, I also borrow works by artists of my generation like so many ephemeral collections, refusing my own iconography, and remaining within the perspective of working on fleeting associations and arrangements.
All the works have to be maintained or reproduced for each show. They have variable dimensions and contents, based essentially on a process of collecting and constructing. With a view to favouring the process of making them as compared with a fixed form, and anticipating concomitant issues of conservation and reactivation, a selection of my works has been the subject of written procedures, akin to certificates and instructions for use, which are brought together in the monographic book Livre noir, published by ADERA, in partnership with the French Institute in Stuttgart. This catalogue has no pictures.
For several months I have had a preference for malleable materials with reproducible procedures. I have become more aware of the chemical and architectonic properties of elements than of the specific features of the sites where I collect them. So my recent works are no longer ephemeral, even though they still have variable dimensions."

Simon Feydieu, 2014
Translated by Simon Pleasance, 2015