Artistic approach
Vincent Barré is a multifaceted artist, an architect, sculptor and director all rolled into one. He likes to consider his work as a part of the history of thought and creation, a reflection of eras and civilisations of the past.
In collaboration with various studios and foundries, Vincent Barré works with a wide range of materials, including iron, aluminium, bronze, stoneware and rubber, creating sculptures that are often monumental and that are all distinctly unique. Always an architect deep down, he takes great interest in the locations of his site-specific artworks, considering all the features and how his work fits into the environment. His sensitivity examines life around the site and its background to then create an imaginary world for each site.
Vincent Barré explains his new installation for the Domain, entitled Fûts as “a long, curved line crosses the wide-open space in the grounds. It is a sort of anonymous, enigmatic sign in this place brimming with history and art. What does it mean? Maybe it is a reference to the fleeting nature of our passage, of the restraint that an impressive place dictates to us, quite simply my taste for discretion. It’s about taking over a landscape without violence, without any inappropriate statements. This long line stretched out across the grass is made up of 5 interlocked, slightly conical-shaped elements, polygon at one end and circular at the other. It is a simple design, representing a complex form. These nested items are all cut with a hot wire from the same block of polystyrene, before being taken to a foundry where the fragile shapes were transformed into hollow iron structures. The quivering hand that held the wire and the waves of the alternating current create grooves on the material that resemble the veins of a tree. Fûts suggests the living aspect of the tree, the awareness of the logs lined up to go to the sawmill, to be transformed by the hand of man. My sculptures are abstract in essence and often suggest something physical, living, that invites the viewer into contact, to touch, stroke, to bend down, sit down. In the Historic Grounds, this warm, dark form will blend into the gentle relief of the meadow, creating a dialogue with the other collection of cast iron structures, Chaos, on the Loire hillside.”
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
FRANCE
Vincent Barré was born in Vierzon in France in 1948. He is a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. A pupil of the great architect, Louis Kahn, he also holds a doctorate in urban planning and a diploma in architecture. He taught at the Beaux-Arts in Paris until 2011. He lives and works in both Saint-Firmin des Bois (Loiret) et Paris.
His work is represented by the Corkin Gallery in Toronto (Canada).
