Pascal Rivet is an atypical figure in French contemporary art who has always celebrated the dialogue between art and popular culture: after being deeply involved in the world of sport, he takes a close look at the professional world and its automobile icons, urban and rural alike. Darty car, pizza deliverers’ scooters, a Brink’s truck, a combine harvester and a tractor… all so many utilitarian vehicles, constructed on a 1:1 scale in wood and painted in the colours of the originals, which stubbornly challenge the gesture of reproduction. What do we see? At a distance, fairly convincing replicas, which are striking for their ability to create imagery. Close up, an undeniable poetry of tinkering, and an empirical […]
Pascal Rivet is an atypical figure in French contemporary art who has always celebrated the dialogue between art and popular culture: after being deeply involved in the world of sport, he takes a close look at the professional world and its automobile icons, urban and rural alike.
Darty car, pizza deliverers’ scooters, a Brink’s truck, a combine harvester and a tractor… all so many utilitarian vehicles, constructed on a 1:1 scale in wood and painted in the colours of the originals, which stubbornly challenge the gesture of reproduction.
What do we see? At a distance, fairly convincing replicas, which are striking for their ability to create imagery. Close up, an undeniable poetry of tinkering, and an empirical know-how which is incorporated in time. Pascal Rivet’s art operates in this interstice: between the world of work and the field of art, between image and object, and between industrial model and craftsman-like process.
