"Frange" mostra di Aurélie Mathigot

From 9 to 14 April 2019, on the occasion of the 58th edition of the Salone del Mobile in Milan, ARCIPELAGO, an entrepreneurial project dedicated to innovation in the cultural sector with the aim of encouraging dialogue between Art and Business, in collaboration with Les Garçons de la rue, presents the exhibition Frange, focused on the work of the French artist Aurélie Mathigot and his collaborations with the world of design. Hosted in the spaces of the barber shop Tonsor Club and the beauty salon Les Garçons de la rue, the exhibition presents a series of hybrid works, typical of the artist's production, whose common thread is, literally, that of a sewing skein. It plays on the connection between the universes of the two subjects: the art of embroidery by Mathigot and the art of cutting by the professionals of Les Garçons de la Rue, unravelling the sense of the term "fringe" both in the textile ornament and in that of the hairstyles.
Aurélie Mathigot is known for her Volumes, sculptures in rope, wool and cotton made using the technique of crochet, in which everyday objects are incorporated by the textiles and therefore removed from their ordinary and functional use. Representing the object, deprived of its original meaning, leads to reversing the canon of the usual and forces attention to reconsider the common, banal things of our daily lives. Ceramics, wood and fabric intertwine, sculpture and weaving embrace, intersect and confront each other, creating works of extraordinary aesthetic eccentricity.
 
The exhibition presents a selection of Mathigot's creations focused on works derived from collaborations with various brands. For Astier de Villatte Mathigot has covered some ceramics (plates, glasses, bowls) with embroidered crochets of hard rope, of which he then made a cast. From this original prototype, the craftsmen of Astier de Villatte reproduce each piece by hand, which is defined as being halfway between the series and the unique piece. With PoParis!, a company specialising in the production of carpets, the artist has initiated research into the manufacturing practices of the latter, which has resulted in a dialogue between the different ways of working different textiles. After identifying the knot technique closest to her crochet work, Mathigot designed the models of some of the pieces, which were then made in Albania by the expert hands of women who have handed down a particular indigenous knotting tradition for generations. For Macon&Lesquoy, a brand renowned for its original brooches, Mathigot has hand-stitched a model inspired by one of his works, resulting in a limited edition series of only 200 pieces. From the collection of Livette la Suissette the artist took the material most familiar to her, namely linen, embroidering on cushions and other furnishing elements of the showy fringes. For the eclectic Parisian brand Merci Mathigot has created a unique piece by assembling fabrics of different shapes, colors and thicknesses. Linen pieces, nettle cloths and full-bodied fringes soaked in natural colours combine to create an installation with a highly scenic effect.
 
Together with embroidery, the other focus of Mathigot's ellipse of artistic trajectory is photography. The Photos Brodées series consists of snapshots printed on canvas, then embroidered at specific points with foreign materials, such as cotton, wool, beads, in order to intensify certain areas of the image. From initially flat surfaces, these works become dynamic thanks to the movement given by the heterogeneity of the added components, displacing perception with an impression of trompe-l'oeil and establishing a double involvement, visual and tactile, which together with the eye also attracts the hand.
 
For Aurélie Mathigot, the creation of a relationship with a place or an object actually takes the form of a weaving operation. Whether it is a question of covering certain portions of the photographic representation of a landscape or of constituting a more or less dense weave around an object of daily use, if there is something that for Aurélie Mathigot must remain present in all the forms of her work, it is this weave as a metaphor for the bond, felt as a potentially unlimited means of communication.
The art of weaving therefore offers something more than the simple objective activity of weaving, it is a question of inventing a relationship: "you can go so far as to yourself oneself whether the relationship of the narrator with his material, human life, is not itself a craft relationship. If his task is not to work the raw material of his experiences - his own and those of others - in a solid, unique and useful way".
 
Aurélie Mathigot has exhibited in many prestigious international museums, such as the Centre Pompidou, the Palais de Tokyo, the Galerie Yvon Lambert, the Musée MAC/VAL by Vitry sur Seine, the Saatchi Gallery in London and the G

ARCIPELAGO is an entrepreneurial project dedicated to innovation in the cultural sector.
An artists' agency that creates content and produces visual arts, performance and digital events, with the aim of encouraging dialogue between Art and Business.
Production ranges from traditional visual art forms to the latest contemporary research, including painting, sculpture, photography, installations, light art, land art, video art and performance.
The project is aimed at companies and foundations, public or private, that intend to develop their artistic commitment within their activities.

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