Fans of colours and sensually alluring surfaces rejoice: Mai Tabakian is back. The French-Vietnamese artist has got a new exhibition entitled "Objects Flottants" (Floating Objects) at the Centre d'art Les 3 CHA - Le Château, in Châteaugiron, France (until 23rd March).
The title of this first major monographic exhibition is very apt: Tabakian's embossed tapestries that have a strong chromatic and textural power, have indeed stopped being static pieces displayed on walls or on the floor of galleries and are now floating in the sky, up above the visitors' heads; they are suspended in a space that was once sacred, a chapel, and have turned into metaphors for alternative dimensions.
While in the past Tabakian studied the notion of cycles and phases, in this case the title of the exhibition was inspired by systemic therapies: this form of therapy looks at the individual and the environment surrounding them in which objects are employed to form a personal or social story.
The floating object becomes therefore an intermediate space, and in this case it turns into a medium between a real dimension and an imagined one.
Geometry and mathematics are never far away in Tabakian's own universe, her squares, triangles, circles, rectangles, pentagons, hexagons or octagons are conceived in this event as forms of "sacred geometry" that we can be spotted both in nature or in architecture.
"The Guardians", an installation physically suspended in the nave and symbolically suspended between arts and crafts, consists in sixteen multi-coloured spheres.
While the colourful patterns on the spheres point at joy and happiness, there is something dark and unsettling about these works.
Are these fun objects balls you could play with or hybrid and alien configurations?
Are these evil eyes watching, rather than guarding, visitors like the proverbial Orwellian Big Brother? Or could they even be a metaphor for today's Artificial Intelligence and for the way it may shape our human future?
"Balance Point" a piece occupying the choir of the Chapel also sparks new dilemmas: eighteen triangular works made of triangles form two infinite triangular shapes touching by their points.
This installation, inspired by Polish mathematician Wacław Franciszek Sierpiński, shows the artist's passion for geometry and mathematics, but also points at the symbolism behind the triangle and in particular calls to mind the Trinity.
The tile-shaped installation on a raised platform in the centre of the building represent instead a sort of Goose Game.
Inspired by the elaborate pavements in the cathedrals of Chartres, Amiens or Cologne, with their geometric and bi-chromic dimensions, Tabakian created square tiles with colourful patterns.
These pieces call to mind the squares in the 16th century board game, but they are also a metaphor for an inner journey that can be taken only by those visitors brave enough to stop in front of Tabakian's abstract geometries to try and grasp their essence and the meaning of the universe.
On the surrounding walls there are instead some modern reinterpretations of coat of arms: they reference the history of the Chapel that centuries ago featured on its walls coats of arms, but they also represent an attempt at creating a new modern and coded Heraldry.
Tabakian reinterpreted indeed the heraldic language from the Middle Ages using her own materials and colours, forming abstract symbols or even subverting the coat of arms, employing vinyl to make them or integrating a contemporary symbol into one of them - a QR Code. Scan it with your mobile phone to discover a hidden and secret message from the artist.
Yet don't think that "Floating Objects" is just about mathematical symbols and metaphors: look at the colours of "The Guardians" and you will just want to turn the spheres into beads and wear then around your neck, and what about those tile-shaped squares, couldn't they inspire some beautiful knitwear pieces or maybe be replicated on a silk scarf?
Time will tell if Tabakian will ever make the transition from art to fashion (you can bet she will...), but, in the meantime, savour "Floating Objects" for what it is - a universe of colours and synthetic textiles introducing visitors to an infinite dimension and a portal into abstract and geometrical spaces.
All images in this post by and copyright Magali Maleux
Comments