Residencies

The Guichard Frères company

It is said to have been founded in 1832 in Saint-Henri, as part of the tile industry of the Séon basin (16th arrondissement of Marseille). These mechanised tile and brick works had steam-powered factories and clay quarries. The emblem of Guichard Frères is said to have been the lion. Today, no trace of this industrial past remains.

Each element is made of a 20 × 20 × 20 cm chimney flue block, from the centre of which rises a column of stacked drainage pipes. The pipes are 33 cm long and about 6 cm in diameter (with slight variations).

I was thinking of anchoring a reinforcing bar in the ground, running through the flue block and the pipes. It might be necessary to stack two flue blocks for more stability, with only one emerging from the ground. Concrete would be poured into the central hollow. The difficulty seems to me to be getting columns that are perfectly straight and stable.

The first line would have 11 elements and would reach 2.40 m at its highest. The second, 17 elements, 3.50 m high. The curves are to be decided on site. The pipes will simply be pressure-washed, and their colour will change over time.

The layout could recall two halves of dinosaur eggs, one ovoid (carnivorous dinosaurs) and one round (herbivores).

The Art Lab City residencies aim to encourage and help sculptors to produce a monumental sculpture. This is my case for 2022/2023, around my concrete sculptures, “the Blocks”. This residency has already led to two exhibitions, “Small is Beautiful” 1 and 2, at the Hôtel Jules César (Arles) and the Espace Molière (Agde). These group exhibitions aimed to show small formats, models and projects for larger-scale sculptures.