Geometry: Assemblage

There is a story that above the entrance to Plato’s Academy in Athens were once inscribed the words “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here”. The Greek word, ageômetrètos, suggest a translation closer to “Let no one who cannot think geometrically enter here”. It implies not just theoretical mathematics, but also a form of practical, applied knowledge, for example in the assessment and division of territory – akin to our modern concept of the “surveyor”. This meaning is preserved in the contemporary French word for surveyor, “géomètre”.

The title of the exhibition plays on this double meaning: The dark space of the gallery in particular, circumscribes a space distantly related to the walled garden of Plato’s academy, a place where our everyday certainties of perception are put to the test. Four stone sculptures are held together by brass clamps. Each sculpture is composed of a geometric stone shape, found by the artist in workshops and refuse piles, held together in a way that creates friction and seems to suspend gravity.

Entitled “Assemblages”, these were created specifically for this exhibition. They are part of the artist’s ongoing research on different assembly systems, which asks questions related to the concerns of ancient Greek philosophy referenced in the title. They poetically engage with the rules and universal principles of physics, and playfully question our perception of geometry and space. The viewer is challenged to “think geometrically”, as a surveyor of space and territory – thus also triggering questions about our relationship with art in a gallery space.

Tools (Disc Sander)

The drawings in the white space are part of the series “Tools”, which Deppierraz has been working on since 2013. All the works in this series are done with workshop tools, mainly for woodworking. Deppierraz worked first on wood, then on plexiglass and finally on paper, researching and experimenting with the impact of various textures, materials and media.

The twelve drawings presented at the gallery were made on a disc sander.The artist fixes a very thin Japanese paper to the surface of the disc sander with a magnet, and draws with felt pens which move over the paper from the centre to the right at varying speeds and with different levels of pressure, creating several layers in different colours. The shape and size of the works is therefore determined completely by the machine used to make them. The lightness and fragility of the Japanese paper was put to the test by turning at 750 revolutions per minute, bringing the paper to the limit, almost tearing it.

The contrast between the image and the action is central to this work, which has an aesthetic rigour but is also a form of artistic research. Violence contrasts with a certain sweetness, the extreme friction of the process with the fragility of the paper and the beauty of the final image. The drawings maintain the trace of a materiality, a volume that one feels but that does not exist.

Kate Whitebread