Safe as houses
An exhibition project about a fictional house for two people, inspired by the work of John Hejduk, Roland Barthes, Gaston Bachelard and Marcel Proust.
Safe as houses is the title of Ludmilla Cerveny’s solo exhibition at Le Lieu Minuscule* in Reims late 2017. The subject of the exhibition is a house (house 07) and its whole stages but considered backwards, from destruction to construction.
Indeed the first thing that we see before entering the gallery space is a drawing on the window representing its ruins, as a plan.
A blue wool curtain separate the street space from the gallery space, creating the darkness required for the video piece and a background for the drawing.
After entering the space, three poles draw our attention : a mock up and two virtual drawings on the wall, the video and a little mock up, upon the floor, in the acute angle of the room.
The House 07 project has been drawn while listening to Roland Barthes’ classes about le ‘vivre ensemble’ at the Collège de France in the late 70’s. It is really inspired by proxemics concept (E.T. Hall) and ‘idiorrythmie’ (the fact of living together but each person has its own rhythm) : it’s a house for two people, sleeping, reading and working in their own room but having a huge space to share, a big dining/ living -room with a huge library, where to talk, read or just observe the landscape outside, a desert in fact.
In the exhibition, while the mock up shows the totality, the video reveals us its interiority: in first shots we are situated in the desert, looking at that enigmatic and radical house, scrutinizing its windows, but suddenly we are into the house, trying to find who and where is this ghostly presence that we can feel.
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Ruines, outline drawing on window, wool curtain, light bulbs, wood chair (Le Bec Bois production), variable dimensions, 2017.
Maison 07, video loop, 9’53, 2017.
Fragment, balsa wood, mirrors, flashlight, variable dimensions, 2017.
Maison 07, poplar wood mock up, 30 x 30 x 30 cm, on base 30 x 30 x 130 cm, Le Bec Bois production, 2017.
Centre, computer-generated imagery printed on Hahnemühle photo rag ultra smooth 305g paper on Dibond 2mm and framed, 67 x 50cm, 2017.
Coupe 01, computer-generated imagery printed on Hahnemühle photo rag ultra smooth 305g paper on Dibond 2mm , 20 x 26,7cm, 2017.
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*Le Lieu Minuscule is a non-profit gallery directed by two architetcs: Aurore Dudevant and Philippe Zulaica : http://le-lieu-minuscule.tumblr.com/