This exhibition bring toghether for the first time two young french artists, Maxime Duveau, freshly graduate from Villa Arson of Nice (France) and Maxime Lamarche, graduated in 2012 from ENSBA (School of fine art) of Lyon.
"Garage" is their vocabulary, the journey their speech. The concept of "garage" is what brings this two differents artists toghether in this exhisbition. The backyard garage of the house, the one where, earlier, they were able to create, to "mechanics" as it has been for Lamarche, or the noisist garage full of rock for Duveau. A fair return to their roots.
Both they took the legendary road to California, to the City Of Angles. As many, they make a pilgrimage as attempt to verify or to demythologize some of their ideals to confront to deal with the reality, and sometimes push it off the road. Travelling though a flat myth. They were brought by the modern "noisist" music and the great "Hollywood Blockbusters", rocked by the original soundtracks of Baywatch or Knightrider. As they challenging the "high concept" of Don Simpson and the color filters of Tony Scott, on the journey.
From this "initiation" trip, Duveau came back with a black and white drawing series, large sizes, realized in two steps, first on the spot, then in studio. As a shrewd visitor, he covers the iconic locations of the Californian rock history, such as Sunset Strip. He dove into this symbolic set, he drowned in the pubs and proceed a personal survey with precision, as the area topographer. He toke picture, doodled, scratched, traced and duplicated the history layers onto the walls. In direct contact with the present, he invites the past to arise.
Maxime Duveau realize "buffers" from those myth crumbs. It will be reproduced directly to the white wall of the exhibition room; to strain two temporalities, two realities. Besides the noir atmosphere way given by the large represntational drawing of Duveau, as specific as are the Elroy’s novel, those drawings live us in front of unpopulated cities, cities of hope where only his mark stay. Signs and storefronts remain us a reality in midwater. With his own aesthetic, Duveau invites ghost of the garage, as done by Lynch with Hollywood and its own.
Lamarche has created hybrid sculptures (sometime puched to a ludicrous statut: a car floats, a boat sinks) taking several operating methods. He is interested in counterproductive scheme, and try to enquire the sculpture status. At first produced for the white space of exhibition, the sculptures are staged outdoors, on roadside and deal with their real status. As the concept of unique piece is the high standard of his production mechanism, challenging the production of contemporary art standard or the contemporary art standard producing, become itself, machine of an autonomous crisis scenario.
For the exhibition "Echos de garage, et valse du décor", Lamarche presents a serie of unseen sculptures realized with polyester resin by moulding. This is a 64’s Chevrolet hood. An event appears on the surface. "Bumpy" or "pimp" in a way got wrong, the hoods seem to be sketched the encounter between two scales, as the boa guiding his huge catch. The landscape, reading new territories, between chaos and varnish paints.