{"id":894,"date":"2010-05-10T18:37:44","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T17:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fichotsculpteur.com\/site\/?p=894"},"modified":"2010-05-10T18:37:44","modified_gmt":"2010-05-10T17:37:44","slug":"forms-and-distortions-in-jean-michel-fichots-sculptures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fichotsculpteur.com\/site\/894\/forms-and-distortions-in-jean-michel-fichots-sculptures","title":{"rendered":"Forms and distortions in Jean-Michel Fichot’s sculptures"},"content":{"rendered":"

FOUR GROUPS OF SCUPTURES<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Jean-Michel FICHOT (b.1959)\u2019s sculptures\u00a0 may be categorized into six series: \u201cLES ENFEUS (funerary recesses, a series started in 1980) ; LE MONDE FEMME (since 1985) ; LES ALIGNEMENTS (since 1989) ; LA S\u00c9RIE AFRIQUE (since 1989) ; LES DIVAS (since 1990) and LES ENL\u00c8VEMENTS (since 1991).\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cLes Enfeus\u201d are groups of male heads made of different materials and aligned in different patterns, their mouths wide-open and screaming.<\/span><\/p>\n

LES ENFEUS<\/span><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/strong>
\nbelong to a world of screaming, of pain and of death. Thanatos rules over this world of funerary recesses.\u00a0 According to most dictionaries an \u201cenfeu\u201d is a funerary recess with a flat bottom created in walls of churches to accommodate graves.\u00a0 In Brittany, local funerary recesses have fascinated Jean-Michel Fichot. The word \u201cenfeu\u201d itself probably also played a role in this fascination evoking a \u201cfeu\u201d (fire) burning everything to ashes, \u201cenfer\u201d (hell) and the damned souls, and \u201cenjeu\u201d (stakes).
\nThe next five groups of art work are centred on the female figure with its tensions, its distortions and its anamorphic projections.\u00a0 Occasionally, this figure appears alone.\u00a0 At times, female groups suddenly appear.\u00a0 \u201cLes Alignements\u201d represent the changing faces of the Woman.\u00a0 At other times, a female figure is abducted, enraptured and perhaps in love, on an animal\u2019s back. This facet of Fichot\u2019s work obviously belongs to a world of Eros, the forces of life, in the domain of feminine pleasure.<\/span><\/p>\n

TENSIONS<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Each one of Jean-Michel Fichot\u2019s sculptures (no matter what group it belongs to) is associated with tensions and with the interactions of opposing forces.\u00a0 It never comes close to a plain representation of our daily world, yet it also refuses to depart too much from this world.\u00a0 The pieces are not meant to be \u201crealistic\u201d nor \u201cabstract\u201d, unless they are both at once, and torn by these conflicting desires, which makes them all the more touching….<\/span><\/p>\n

If the sculptor tends to distort, to bend, to twist and to stretch heads and bodies, he also makes sure that they remain identifiable and desirable\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jean-Michel Fichot\u2019s work suggests many other kinds of encounters with conflicting desires.\u00a0 For instance, the roughness of the theme in \u201cLes Enfeus\u201d, its violence (expressed by screaming faces) lead the sculptor to work with precious materials (e.g. gold, lacquer, etc.) with odd and almost perverse refinements.<\/span><\/p>\n

INTRICATE PLAYS OF DISTORTED PERSPECTIVES<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Intricate and serious distortions of perspectives occur here, those same distortions that Jurgis Baltrusaitis (1903-1988), the great art historian, studied in his research on anamorphoses and what he calls \u201cornamental stylistics of Romanesque sculpture\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 For instance, he shows how sculpted forms result from a logic of internal evolution through plays of transformation.\u00a0 He also shows how, in the 11th and the 12th century, a human figure was oblong, rounded or made rectangular, and modified in numerous ways according to the architectural setting in which it is situated\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

When studying the strange torsions Jean-Michel Fichot assigns to his female figures, some might recognise the transformations within bodies following sexual climax (and so-called mystic ecstasy). Or else, they will quote Paul Val\u00e9ry\u2019s remark about Ingres\u2019 drawings:
\n\u201cMr. Ingres\u2019charcoal chases grace to the point of ugliness, the spine never long enough, nor soft enough, nor the neck flexible enough with the thighs rather smooth, and with the contemplative eye being led to caress the body curves than see them\u201d.
\nJean-Michel Fichot distortions are obviously very different from those of Ingres.\u00a0 Yet, in a way, they also invent new bodies and suggest new sources of pleasures to our eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gilbert <\/span>Lascault<\/span>, 1993<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FOUR GROUPS OF SCUPTURES Jean-Michel FICHOT (b.1959)\u2019s sculptures\u00a0 may be categorized into six series: \u201cLES ENFEUS (funerary recesses, a series started in 1980) ; LE MONDE FEMME (since 1985) ; LES ALIGNEMENTS (since 1989) ; LA S\u00c9RIE AFRIQUE (since 1989) ; LES DIVAS (since 1990) and LES ENL\u00c8VEMENTS (since 1991).\u00a0 \u201cLes Enfeus\u201d are groups of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fichotsculpteur.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fichotsculpteur.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fichotsculpteur.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fichotsculpteur.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fichotsculpteur.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fichotsculpteur.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":896,"href":"https:\/\/www.fichotsculpteur.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions\/896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fichotsculpteur.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fichotsculpteur.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fichotsculpteur.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}