Benjamin Sabatier – Mode d’emploi

The title of Benjamin Sabatier’s first one-man show at the Galerie Catherine Issert reveals an entire project in itself. A “mode d’emploi”, or “instruction leaflet”, refers to production techniques, specifica- tions, the assembly procedure, even the way in which one employs one’s time. In pragmatic terms, a “mode d’emploi” is a document which explains the specific way in which an object is built or how a service works. In programmatic terms, such a document provides the protocol which has to be followed.Thus, right from the start, we know where we stand: the artist is inviting us to reflect on form, but also on the process which has brought (the work) into being. He raises questions addressing both art and its sphere of operation, but also the freedom of the artist with regard to the technical (or socially useful) work.

Benjamin Sabatier’s approach is based on praxis. He likes to begin with a tactile discovery of the properties of the materials used, and learn from them. His postulate is based on direct contact with matter to develop the faculty of perception.Through his work, the artist incites us to question the notions of fabrication and know-how. Always lying at the core of his reflection, experimentation, assem- bly and auto-construction lead him towards emancipatory utopias and commitment – the Do ItYour- self movement, for example; at the same time, the shapes he deploys revisit the great questions posed by modern sculpture, ranging from Constructivism to Arte Povera.

Between physical tension and precarious balance, either real or fictitious, Benjamin Sabatier’s works are nevertheless sensual.The materials he combines, wood and concrete, are here obliged to struggle or associate with each other.The first belongs to the realm of warmth, structure, nature, the living, while the second belongs to a cold, liquid, random and mineral world.Within these dualities, each one has its own roughness and softness.

By means of a metaphor,Sabatier’s formal vocabulary also belongs to the lexical field of the building site. It conjures up a certain image of the world and conveys a formal dynamic, a form of esthetics in motion. Generally speaking, a building site does not suggest an undertaking which has been completed, but work in progress. In art, the phrase “Work in Progress” is used to describe a project presented at some point during its execution. It is a notion which makes the process visible. As recalled by Paul Klee’s apho- rism reproduced on the front of George Perec’s book, La Vie mode d’emploi: “The eye follows paths laid out for it within the work”.The path taken by the artist is made visible in the formal result: it reveals effort, development and presentation. It shows the mechanics behind its production (and de-struction), construction (and deconstruction). Ultimately resembling the ambition of the character of Bartlebooth in Pérec’s book, whose project would gradually be destroyed as it came to fruition, the aim for the artist, confronted by the inextricable incoherence of the world, is to carry a programme through to its very end, undoubtedly limited, but whole, intact, and irrevocable. A manifesto in itself.

Benjamin Sabatier
Sans titre
2016
Ciment et corde
24 x 54 x 41 cm
Installation : 24 x 125 x 86
Courtesy Galerie Catherine Issert
© François Fernandez

Benjamin Sabatier
Sans titre
2016
Béton et bois.
190 x 20 x 20 cm
Courtesy Galerie Catherine Issert
© François Fernandez