Sculptures 1992 – 2000 (selection).

Between 1992 and 2000, Gilles Barbier, a graduate of the Luminy Fine Art school (Marseille), began to develop his vocabulary and lay down the main lines of his artistic reflection. He formalized his first Game of Life which literally exploded his relationship to art, work, method and the artist’s identity.

We see The “Pawns”and “Inhabiting” series taking shape (Locataire Mobilier [Furniture Tenant], Inhabiting Painting), the Clones… With his “Sculptures Pauvres” (Poor Sculptures), body and language are brought to bear in summary stagings, while with Planqué dans l’Atelier [Hidden in the Studio] it’s a treasure hunt with the spectator. The audience’s complicity is once again called upon in Reality Correctors.

From the very first years, the studio became the artist’s playground. This consecrated space becomes the place where anything is possible! Cobbled-together installations, expeditious stagings and ephemeral sculptures rub shoulders with meticulous, rigorous daily work in a ballet where disorientation seems to be the driving force. But the circulation of energies, which Gilles Barbier first staged with a work like La Ruée vers l’Or [Gold Rush], became the central element of his artistic device.