Pierre-Jean Sugier. "Familière étrangeté"
Edouard Sautai est sculpteur. Il construit des formes reconnaissables et surdimensionnées. Des amphores pour le théâtre romain de Lillebonne, une table, des ballons de papier de soie cousus, une toupie géante, des maisons schématisées…Toute une gamme de formes fonctionnant sur un mécanisme d’articulation entre l’espace d’exposition et le contexte de présentation.
Le regard que nous portons sur ces objets nous renvoie au monde de l’enfance sublimé par un savoir faire d’ingénieur. La référence au monde de l’enfance n’est pas une régression infantile au sens freudien, ni une régression des images puisque ces formes ne sont pas faites de pulsions graphiques qui caractérisent l’enfance, mais plutôt du monde imaginaire que développe le regard que nous renvoient les objets dans notre petite enfance. La toupie géante en plâtre, comme les amphores où la main géante de Séoul, sont à mettre en relation avec une recherche archéologique, celle de l’histoire mais aussi celle de la forme. Un axe de toupie implique une rotation sur elle même en référence à tous les objets célestes. Contenant, contenu, ciel et terre, comme si tout ce qui est de cet ordre devait obéir à une loi de fabrication d’un divin artisan tourneur.
Dans l’enfance tous les objets paraissent physiquement inaccessibles, surdimensionnés, à la fois protecteurs et agressifs. La table, lieu d’échange est ici insaisissable, inaccessible, tout juste protectrice.
Le regard que porte Edouard Sautai sur les choses vient déconstruire l’objet pour le rendre informe, étranger au monde. Ainsi les ballons de couleurs ou ceux de football apportent une légèreté d’une étrange familiarité. Les trois ballons de foot sont positionnés sur un axe virtuel et cousus d’hexagones noirs et blancs de différentes tailles pour chaque ballon. Le plus proche est composé d’hexagones très larges pour simuler une vision très rapprochée. Certes le traumatisme infantile de son auteur qui reçu un ballon en pleine figure dans sa petite enfance, doit y être pour quelque chose. Mais c’est surtout une façon sculpturale de mettre à distance ce qui est à la fois proche et lointain tout en lui conférant une mise en danger.
De même dans les « dessins-volumes » de maisons dont les arrêtes s’inscrivent dans la structure de l’ensemble des volumes positionnés dans l’espace, Edouard Sautai invite à voir que ce qui donne la forme schématisée de l’objet et non l’objet. Il dissous le réel pour nous en redonner la forme. La forêt canadienne est à la fois une construction qu’un enfant aurait pu rêver faire, et l’image même de la déficience de l’objet par une surabondance d’objet qui tend vers une étrangeté familière.
C’est cette même étrangeté qui confère à l’installation dans un parc public de Séoul, toute sa fonction et sa réussite. La notion de territoire prend tout son sens dans cette sculpture géante faite de tuiles. Le site fut occupé dans l’histoire de la Corée par les Chinois, les Japonais, puis les Américains qui firent de ce lieu un terrain de golf. Si dans cette pièce, Edouard Sautai évoque le corps humain pour la première fois - la main - celle qui tourne pour construire l’amphore, la toupie, qui pétrie la terre pour la fabrication de la tuile ; c’est surtout la question de main mise sur le territoire qu’il vient souligner dans l’ambiguïté de la pose, main mise sur le terrain et main protectrice.
La sculpture d’Edouard Sautai libère l’objet de sa valeur intrinsèque comme un enfant appréhende le monde pour réinventer un territoire, celui de la sculpture. Sans frontière clairement définie, elle emporte avec elle le monde des images, du dessin, de la matière et nous impose la perspective comme une mise en danger.
P-J.S 2001
Edouard Sautai is a sculptor. He creates huge recognisable forms:
amphoras for the Roman Theatre in Lillebonne, a table, balloons made out of
sewn silk, a giant spinning top, and oversimplified houses. We have here an
entire range of forms that are based on a mechanism of connection between the
exhibition space and the context of presentation. Our perception of these
objects reverts us back to childhood, which has been sublimated by the
know-how of an engineer. These forms are not made out of graphic
impulses characteristic of childhood, rather they stem from the imaginary
world developed by the micro perception which is produced by these objects
from our childhood. However, this reference to the world of childhood is not
a Freudian kind of childish regression, nor a regression of the images.
The giant terracotta spinning top, like the jars or the giant hand
from
Seoul, are related to an archaeological research, of a historical and formal
kind. The axis of a spinning top involves a rotation referring to all
celestial objects. Container, content, heaven and earth - as if everything
of this order had to obey a law of manufacturing by a divine whirling
craftsman. In childhood, all objects seem physically huge and unattainable,
at once protective and aggressive. The table as a place of dialogue is here
elusive, unattainable and hardly protective. Edouard Sautai's perception of
things deconstructs the object, thereby rendering it formless and alien to the
world. Thus, the coloured balloons or footballs elicit a lightness that
seem strangely familiar. Different sizes of black and white hexagons have
been sewn together and the three footballs have been placed on a virtual
axis. The closest football is made up of large hexagons in order to simulate
an extremely close-up vision. Although a childhood trauma probably played a
role for the artist when he received a ball straight in the face, the artist
possesses a sculptural way of keeping at a distance that which is both close
and far away; while at the same time setting up a precarious situation. Also
in the "volume-drawings" of houses, where the edges are inserted in a general
structure of masses arranged in space, Edouard Sautai invites us to see only
that which creates a schematic representation of the object and not the
object itself. He dissolves reality in order to show us its re-presentation.
While the Canadian forest is a construction a child could have dreamt of
making, the image of the object's deficiency, suggested by the overabundance
of objects, indicates a familiar strangeness.
It is this same strangeness that renders the installation in a public
park in Seoul, its entire function a success. The idea of territory becomes
apparent in this giant sculpture made of tiles. According to Korean history,
the site was once occupied by the Chinese and the Japanese, until the
Americans transformed it into a golf course. If, in this installation,
Edouard Sautai chooses for the first time to evoke the human body (the hand
turning to create the jar, the spinning top which moulds to produce the
tile), it is above all a question of the territorial and protective hand.
Like a child who learns about the world by re-inventing a sculptural
territory, Edouard Sautai's sculpture removes the intrinsic value of the
objects. Lacking clearly defined limits, the sculpture conveys a world of
images, drawings and material, thus imposing a perspective that puts us in a
vulnerable position.
Translated by Pernille Grane.
Edouard Sautai is a sculptor. He creates huge recognisable forms:
amphoras for the Roman Theatre in Lillebonne, a table, balloons made out of
sewn silk, a giant spinning top, and oversimplified houses. We have here an
entire range of forms that are based on a mechanism of connection between the
exhibition space and the context of presentation. Our perception of these
objects reverts us back to childhood, which has been sublimated by the
know-how of an engineer. These forms are not made out of graphic
impulses characteristic of childhood, rather they stem from the imaginary
world developed by the micro perception which is produced by these objects
from our childhood. However, this reference to the world of childhood is not
a Freudian kind of childish regression, nor a regression of the images.
The giant terracotta spinning top, like the jars or the giant hand
from
Seoul, are related to an archaeological research, of a historical and formal
kind. The axis of a spinning top involves a rotation referring to all
celestial objects. Container, content, heaven and earth - as if everything
of this order had to obey a law of manufacturing by a divine whirling
craftsman. In childhood, all objects seem physically huge and unattainable,
at once protective and aggressive. The table as a place of dialogue is here
elusive, unattainable and hardly protective. Edouard Sautai's perception of
things deconstructs the object, thereby rendering it formless and alien to the
world. Thus, the coloured balloons or footballs elicit a lightness that
seem strangely familiar. Different sizes of black and white hexagons have
been sewn together and the three footballs have been placed on a virtual
axis. The closest football is made up of large hexagons in order to simulate
an extremely close-up vision. Although a childhood trauma probably played a
role for the artist when he received a ball straight in the face, the artist
possesses a sculptural way of keeping at a distance that which is both close
and far away; while at the same time setting up a precarious situation. Also
in the "volume-drawings" of houses, where the edges are inserted in a general
structure of masses arranged in space, Edouard Sautai invites us to see only
that which creates a schematic representation of the object and not the
object itself. He dissolves reality in order to show us its re-presentation.
While the Canadian forest is a construction a child could have dreamt of
making, the image of the object's deficiency, suggested by the overabundance
of objects, indicates a familiar strangeness.
It is this same strangeness that renders the installation in a public
park in Seoul, its entire function a success. The idea of territory becomes
apparent in this giant sculpture made of tiles. According to Korean history,
the site was once occupied by the Chinese and the Japanese, until the
Americans transformed it into a golf course. If, in this installation,
Edouard Sautai chooses for the first time to evoke the human body (the hand
turning to create the jar, the spinning top which moulds to produce the
tile), it is above all a question of the territorial and protective hand.
Like a child who learns about the world by re-inventing a sculptural
territory, Edouard Sautai's sculpture removes the intrinsic value of the
objects. Lacking clearly defined limits, the sculpture conveys a world of
images, drawings and material, thus imposing a perspective that puts us in a
vulnerable position.
Translated by Pernille Grane.