John Cornu: Atlantes & Cariatides

"Atlantes & Cariatides" confronts the viewer with deconstructed African wooden sculptures of the type "simple replicas of a so-called primitive art". They are found objects and processed by French artist John Cornu in a modernist way. The sclptures are tourist souvenirs from Africa, like millions of which have probably ended up in living rooms worldwide since the beginning of the 20th century. John Cornu addresses the "points of tension between African and European sculpture" and anchors "a multitude of paradoxes in his installation", according to Jean-Roch Bouiller, director of the Museum Des Beaux-Arts Rennes, in a text about John Cornus' sculptures "Atlantes et Cariatides “.

John Cornu works with an aesthetic inherited from Minimalism and Modernism (monochromy, seriality, modularity, the primacy of the materials), while maintaining a strong relation to (historical, architectural, societal) context and a form of contemporary Romanticism (Dionysianism, erosion, blindness, references to different sonic universes, and entropy).
With an interest for modern ruins, logics of power, and anthropological gaps, the artist imbues his productions with an atmosphere at once poetic, cathartic and without compromise. Whether sculptural, performative, or installation-based, they address paradoxical forces, setting up a multiplicity of meanings and readings.

Born in 1976 (FR), John Cornu lives and works between Rennes and Paris. His work has been shown in numerous solo and group shows at: Institut Giacometti (Paris, FR), Palais de Tokyo and Maison rouge (Paris, FR), Mains d’œuvres (Saint-Ouen, FR), CNEAI (Chatou, Paris, FR), Galerie Edouard-Manet (Gennevilliers, FR), 40mcube/Hub Hug (Rennes, FR), Frac Bretagne (Rennes, FR), Parvis Centre d’art contemporain (Ibos, FR), Bel ordinaire (Pau, FR), CACN-Centre d’art contemporain (Nîmes, FR), Les Trinitaires (Metz, FR), BF15 (Lyon, FR), EAC–Espace de l’Art Concret (Mouans-Sartoux, FR), BBB centre d’art et Abattoirs–Frac Midi-Pyrénées (Toulouse, FR), La Galerie Duchamp – Centre d’art contemporain (Yvetot, FR), Prieuré de Pont-Loup (Moret-sur-Loing, FR), Musée des Beaux-arts in Rennes and in Calais (FR), Lyon Biennale (FR), Attic (Brussels, BE), Académie royale des Beaux-Arts (Brussels, BE), DBKAproject (Brussels, BE), Les Brasseurs (Liège, BE), Sainsbury Center for Visual Arts (Norwich, UK), CIRCA (Montréal, CA), MACRO–Museo di Arte contemporanea di Roma (Rome, IT), Chambre Blanche (Québec, CA), ZQM (Berlin, Germany), Galerie Gilla Loercher (Berlin, Germany), and the Nuit Blanche in Montreal (CA). 

Upcoming Fairs and Exhibitions

15– 18 September 2022 | POSITIONS Berlin art fair | Flughafen Tempelhof | Stand Galerie Gilla Loercher
September – October 2022 | Vanessa Enriquez (MEX)
November – December 2022 | Gonzalo Reyes Araos (ARG)

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