Festival / Evening
Voulez-vous un dessin ?
Performance dessinée - Jochen Gerner, Fabio Viscogliosi, Katia Viscogliosi
26 Feb 2017
The event is over
À l’occasion du lancement de la série animée « Voulez-vous un dessin ? » qui présente chaque semaine au public un courant majeur de l’histoire de l’art du 20e siècle, le Centre Pompidou propose une performance dessinée de Jochen Gerner. Le dessinateur place son geste sous la triple influence de la partition musicale live de Fabio Viscolgiosi, des éléments narratifs évoqués par les textes lus et de l’univers graphique mis en place dans la série animée. Les extraits de textes, interprétés par Katia Viscogliosi, sont tirés d’ouvrages de Fabio Viscogliosi, Apologie du slow, Mont Blanc et Je suis pour tout ce qui aide à traverser la nuit ; ils évoquent des artistes, des œuvres ou des situations qui font écho à l'art et sa fabrique. Une performance inédite qui met la pensée dessinée au centre du dispositif. Vous vouliez un dessin ?
When
6pm - 7pm
Where
Interview with Jochen Gerner
Victor Guégan - Isn’t it difficult to explain art movements in just a few lines?
Jochen Gerner - It’s the difficulty that attracted me! You have to represent a Cubist work or a piece of Pop Art in a consistent graphic style. It’s an endeavour that involves standing back and reinterpreting. The commitment to a minimalist line and the rejection of imitation leads me to a spontaneous jotting, a bit like taking notes.
VG - You combine work for yourself with work to commission. Do these involve two different ways of working?
JG - I’m a member of Oubapo (Ouvroir de bande dessinée potentielle), which is the graphic novel equivalent of Oulipo (the Ouvroir de littérature potentielle being a French writers’ group interested in the possibilities of writing under strict formal constraint - ed.). So I don’t see the graphic novel or illustration as something alienating but rather as fields of experiment. Having constraints of format, technique or number of colours available forces you to come up with new ideas. […] When I work for the press, I always want to know how my drawings will be set amid the text. In the same way, for a book, you have to understand how the images combine with the text and how the whole thing’s organised. That kind of work is a joy to me.
VG - In what way is your own graphic style clearly recognisable?
JG - My work is based on obliteration, transparency and framing. I regularly work with existing printed media (a graphic novel, an IKEA catalogue), which I obliterate in part. A new drawing then emerges, which brings out the structure of the template, the layout or some other element. On this painted surface I develop pictograms that express ideas. It’s a kind of tightrope-walking.
VG - How is your approach reflected in the series “Voulez-vous un dessin?” ?
JG - I start with a black and white drawing, very simple, with touches of colour. These might suggest a painting, a certain detail, draw attention to a particular effect. With a basic colour language you can already signal feelings or prompt emotions. The series is a very simple rendering of different art movements by a play with forms. And the whole thing is accompanied by Louise Bourgoin’s voice-over and sound effects by Fabio Viscogliosi.
PERSON - Jochen Gerner
Source :
in Code Couleur n°27, january-april 2017, pp. 48-49
