This would be the way to transform any object into something interesting. We’d start, for example, with a partly old-fashioned, partly blistered catalogue of furniture, a publication from the 1920s, but not a fine sample of today’s taste, with art deco desks or neat armchairs, but rather a collection of rustic tables with gnarled, carved legs, the heavy stuff as we say today. In this way, we’d be able to look at them differently, to see beyond their appearance. And soon, you’d be surprised to find a certain charm in these thick tops set on large spiral columns with their massive wooden balls like swollen knees. One would sense their unsuspected lightness and grace, long ignored by everyone, which would make one want to acquire them in their drawn form. A bulky, virtually immovable console would be unsuitable for your living room? You don’t need any grandmother’s household equipment, which moreover does not come from your grandmother’s house? No need to block your entrance with a dark wooden, dusty and massive counter? Well, it’s your lucky day: these models now exist in the artist’s revisited versions, slightly veiled to filter out their basic heaviness and each time reveal a new and unique face in interlacing and undulating patterns. Covered in shimmering layers, you’ll still recognize them, but you’ll be able to admire them in a transformed version.
This medium is visible and remains a mystery. You can observe the result at leisure, and the artist himself will be able to explain it to you – within the limits of his availability – but his intervention is decided between him and himself in a mixture of intuition and enthusiasm.
To decorate these enormous tables, we could have put bunches of peonies or of huge gladioli, or arranged dahlias in a chubby vase or a grand style bowl. But since the concrete supports have become Jochen Gerner’s works, we have had to proceed in the same way with the flowers. And so, in the same gesture that has revealed the objects in lines inspired by their own shapes, the flowers have ended up hidden-revealed through a few openings, and sprinkled with coded confetti.
All that remained was to add a few minerals and a ski resort to the set. Why skiing? Well, because it’s an excellent sport, which allows you to draw lines.
Valérie Mréjen