Take a pause in L’Alternatif, in the heart of Paris-La Défense business quarter, close to the famous CNIT, a new spacious forum & co-working place dedicated to culture and entertainment and to host corporate events, like a private show of the DJ Yuksek! It was born from the meeting of 3 actors: Paris La Défense, Establishment in charge of the management, of animation and promotion of the area, Culture Et Patrimoine, a specialized company in the valuation of exceptional assets and Indigo, operator of La Défense car parking.
Composed of a high-tech event room (photo credits: Alex Plato).
The space of 1600 m2 allows you to interact, relax with yoga classes and regenerate with conferences and a Cocktail Bar.
Lately, from February 15th to April 25th 2018, the gallery, in association with The French Art Dealeuses collective, featuring Audrey Hatchikian, hosted the 4th metamorphosis of L’Alternatif, through the doors opening of the highly anticipated “Appartement D’un Collectionneur” exhibition. In this dream apartment, design and contemporary Art lived together in a natural harmony. From the living room to the office through the boudoir and the dining room, the walls were figurative with works by Gérard Schlosser, Robert Combas, Arman, Jacques Monory, Bernard Rancillac, Gérard Fromanger, Ivan Messac… And this space vibrates with the wealth of creations signed by designers such as Hans Von Klier, Verner Panton, Florence Knoll, Joseph-Andre Motte, Philippe Starck… “The apartment of a collector” staged more than 40 works.
If you don’t know what to do next week after your full day in La Défense office, come have a macaron or a cosmopolitan, while admiring the next exhibition (until 29th June 2018) in L’Alternatif Art Gallery of the American Artist Auguste Garufi, untitled “I have forgotten how it is I belong among blossoms and birds”.
Auguste Garufi, an American artist with ten thousand works, is above all, by his own admission, a poet who follows his inspiration. He writes, paints, sculpts, prints, installs and makes sacred ordinary space. His paintings are in his image, sometimes subtle and delicate facts of Japanese paper and petals that would fly away if they were sewn, and sometimes darker, intense, troubling female figures that scrutinize our soul. Poetic lightness is always present, poems printed and hidden in his hanging paintings or in his “vessels”, his sculpture made of oxidized paper with silver leaf, or his little bronze Ucello birds or paper nested in an outstretched hand.
Everything with Auguste Garufi brings us to the purity, the lightness of the materials, the softness of the colors. This is perhaps his great concern, thanks to his printed poetry, his rounds of hands that invite us to dance, his light Japanese kozo papers that rub shoulders with metal fabrics, he asks us to experiment his new dimension. His universe creates a unique spiritual artistic emotion (photo credits: Alexandre Plateaux).
In order to learn more about the artist, here are a couple of questions asked to him:
– What made you switch from medical studies to Art?
It was not a switch for me… I do not see any movement /transition as a switch… From the outside, it
might appear that way but for me each experience is its own course that together add to form the
journey of one’s life…
I never made a conscious decision to do this than that… it is always for me … to do what ever is
necessary to be who and where … internally and externally … that i want to be.
All the work is about that… finding the space between things that might not seem related and exposing
a different view point on it… a path unfolding before me.
Different events/experiences may begin and end and seem like a switch .. but they are not … they are
just events that reach their conclusion for a particular time.
I want my work to be created /viewed/survive or be destroyed in the same spirit, as if coming upon a magical moment that will never be exactly that way for you again … like looking at the sky or walking into a forest. I want the work… and i myself will enter into my own work that is not mine any longer in the same way…. to be experienced for what it is only. It is honest … When I say I have forgotten how it is “i belong among blossoms and birds” that is exactly what i mean i am lost …. wondering/wandering how ….. i have forgotten how it is also wondering how …. it is i belong but also stating … i belong among blossoms and birds and on and on …. the work is never ending in that sense … as i am always revolving / folding over in my searching the work is simply a visual of that search
– How did you come to use japanese papers?
As in everything i do … all materials arise out of solving a problem and each variable has a weight with in the equation … i do not use paper because i want to use paper
i use paper because material … gives me … at this point … the solutions to the problems
i began using the paper … in a way that was not just traditional drawing in order to create a surface
that was both controllable and not …. see portraits and birds
all decisions are made from the necessity of the underlying philosophical construct
materials and mediums are only useful as to allow a manifestation of this
for me there is no other reason for choosing one or another material
paper is found in much of my work because of it versatility
i get the papers that I choose from what sources i can depending on my requirements
many of the papers are kozo … as i have found that the fiber length and strength to weight ratio and
its ability to be glued work well with what i am trying to do
– What could you say about the composition of those papers?
which papers are you referring to works themselves compositionally or to the contents (fibers) of the papers? i can not say much about the composition …. i am trying to construct a map … in a sense of how to open … unlike those things unseen in the universe?
– How did you meet up with the team from L’Alternatif?
like all good things … chance/timing and circumstances knowing people who introduced me to
Audrey Hatchikian (TheFrenchArtDealeuses) in charge of L’Alternatif Art Curation (thoughts).
No technique or material or observation or direction of study is more important than the necessary
harmony/disharmony of the relationships between all parts of all works and between the works
themselves (thoughts on Dante). Everything is in the journey and kindness that you give that is what adds to the collective – to the universe, it is in the giving I wrote somewhere … for something … my work is in an offering in the last lines of Dante – the Divine Comedy. A wheel turning love that moves the sun and the other stars. For the poet it is not in achieving the impossible that matters but attempting to rconcile all things into harmony.
How to find our place
How all things find their place
In the revolving/ oscillating fluidity of the universe
All things finding their/there place
I am merely a facilitator
In the Divine Comedy … Dante takes you to the end … and you must get to the end to realize that he
has very little to tell you … only that life is in the giving … all else is just life lesson and daily being
the journey is in the giving …. and constantly cycling over and over.
