Works
Pawns.
Links to The Game of Life, Checkers, Clones.Pawns 1992. Gilles Barbier inaugurates a working protocol whose simple, concise rules favor a “sideways” approach to art, ideas and work: a checkerboard, pawns, a displacement operator and statements. The layout of the game...
Stasis.
Stasis (...) To talk about "Stasis", the series of sculptures I began in the early 2010s, I need to talk about Still Life. This genre never ceases to capture my attention, as it accompanies my daydreams. Both images and sculptures have a highly complex relationship...
Between the Joints, Language.
Between the Joints, Language. (...) Body and language have long been a continuum for me. Between the Joints, Language is part of this dynamic. I've always been moved by the fact that a bone can break into two, three or more, thanks to that ingenious invention of...
Mega Model.
Link to Studies and Plans for "Mega Model".Mega Model (evolution): I, II, III, IV. 1998 - 2021 You love miniaturizing. Your 2006 Mega Model evokes an enchantment that children know well. Claude Lévi Strauss and Gaston Bachelard have extolled the virtues of the...
Inhabiting.
References: Studies and recipes, Inhabiting painting, Locataire Mobilier, Cabins.Inhabiting: Feasts, meats, pedestal tables, trays... Since the Middle Ages, art has sought to free itself from craftsmanship, developing its spiritual and mental dimension. In the...
The Cockpit.
Link to Shipwrecks.The Cockpit. During the development of the third version of the Mega Model, Gilles Barbier had the feeling that his initial project was gradually metamorphosing into a vessel, something like an ark. The installation's gravitational pull attracts a...
The Burrow.
The Burrow. 2004 A burrow, excavated, brought to light. A burrow whose interior and secret workings are revealed. Complete nudity. Not just the body, everything. Life, memory, desires, loves, treasures, fetishes... all the little secrets. Franz Kafka exploited this...
Banana Riders.
"Banana Riders", 2004. In the early 2000s, the banana became a recurring motif in his work. Molded in wax and painted, he places it here and there in the exhibition space, calling it Dreamlike Vaseline. This exotic fruit, associated with the monkey (and, by extension,...
The Cake.
"The Cake", "The Cake", a very large-scale installation, evokes an edible world, cut into slices. These give a glimpse of an earthen filling tapped by earthworms. An image of a world divided into appetites, gnawed from within by a gluttonous vermin.
Superheroes.
Superheroes: "Nursing Home", 2002, and "A very Old Thing", 2015. It was while reading Francis Masse (Les Deux du Balcon) that Gilles Barbier discovered that Mickey, Walt Disney's little mouse, gets younger as he ages. Francis Masse demonstrates this with drawings....
Cosmogonies.
Link to Preparatory drawings.Cosmogonies. To shed some light on how this works, I'd like to emphasize the machinic and logical aspect. It's like imagining cores - we could also say software - that play the role of production machines. So many devices designed to...
Cabins.
Links : Inhabiting, Inhabiting Painting, Locataire Mobilier.Bonsai Tree Houses. (...) In 2004, I built a tree house. It was an extraordinary experience, combining architecture, sculpture and botany. During this weightless outing - between heaven and earth - I put my...
Clones.
Clones (selection). Between the early 1990s and 2001, Gilles Barbier experimented with the clone series. Derived from the "Pawns"This series features life-size, hyperrealistic wax representations of himself, staged in a variety of situations. Often very large in size,...
Cheese.
Cheese. Cheese plays an important role in Gilles Barbier's work. When asked by Gaël Charbau (*), he replies: This world of holes, balanced on a dynamic of desires and anxieties, openings and closures, I try to give it a body, to restore the simple images we need to...
Outdoor sculptures.
"The Misthrown Dice", 2017. "Works Boxes", 2019. "The Misthrown Dice". - ,,Gott würfelt nicht". (Albert Einstein). - Aber es kann doch nicht unsere Aufgabe sein, Gott vorzuschreiben, wie Er die Welt regieren soll" (Niels Bohr). "Lawn Sharks". The artist borrows from...
Sculptures 2010 – 2024 (selection).
2010 - 2024. Gilles Barbier is continuing the series. Pawns whose number increases considerably (from a few dozen to over thirty). This series is amplified by the reintroduction of the Game of Life at the Centre Georges Pompidou. Then, a few years later, with the...
Sculptures 1992 – 2000 (selection).
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...
Sculptures 2000-2010 (selection).
Sculptures 2000-2010 (selection). To mark the reopening of the Centre Georges Pompidou, which had been closed for several years for renovations, Gilles Barbier was invited by curators Sophie Duplaix and Catherine Grenier to take part in the inaugural...