Florence Doléac

Naufragés/castaways

2008

CRAC LR, Sète

Des constructeurs éclectiques

Swollen PVC 22 balls, woolen carpet, colring necklace, sound track

Sound Track: Laurent Siksous

126 inches x 29,5 inches

This arrangement of collective repose in many different positions is made up of a set of different sized air bubbles, kept in place by a woven woollen cover; the pixellized Scottish pattern conjures up a digital allegory about the wild deep blue sea. The supple outlines of a huge tielle* that can save a dozen shipwrecked souls.

*The tielle is a culinary speciality of Sète, on France’s Languedoc coast: a tart based on octopus, tomatoes and spices.

Florence Doléac sets her work in an interstitial space where design hobnobs with art, and where presentation and production methods waver between a system that is both commercial and institutional. The fact that she lays claim to this not very common stance endows her with a specific identity. The fact is that not only does Florence Doléac introduce a tension between production and exhibition, with answers that brim with wit and poetry, but she also develops a line of questioning about function and its contrasting counterpart: uselessness. Her proposals and ideas sidestep established codes in order to upset the way we usually perceive things; she intercepts our gestures by putting a finger on their limits. The incongruousness of the various situations thus created refers us to our own imagination, thus lightening a reality that is far too straitjacketed.