BUNK

The sculptures that Isabelle Andriessen introduces in the CAN Centre d’art Neuchâtel for her exhibition BUNK seem at first sight to be asleep. These voluminous ceramic bodies, supported by steel frames, give the impression of being in a state of latency that nevertheless hides a constant and substantial activity. To perceive the life which animates those materials it is necessary to free ourselves from our temporal perception as human beings and reach a much slower rhythm. Time is stretched out; the transformation of these sculptures takes place over periods of time that exceed those of their exhibition, several months, even several years. Secretions of chemical substances, oxidation, crystallisation, condensation, capture of moulds; these micro-actions testify to the vivacity of these entities that seem to immutably take possession of the space they occupy. The limits that conventionally define the living and the non-living are extended, blurred and tend even to a complete dissolution.