Sculpture Object 52: The Worm, 2017
Photo: Roman März
Photo: Roman März
Past
Collection
Loans
Ebony, plinth (MDF, car lacquer)
68 x 29 x 13 cm (sculpture)
100 x 25 x 25 cm (plinth)
Giovanni Carmine has written that the question of how to activate sculpture is a primary concern for Claudia Comte.[1] In addition to paying a high level of critical attention to methods of display, her various responses to this question have dealt humorously and playfully with a legacy inherited from Modernism, combining traditional forms with styles and shapes derived from contemporary culture and the visual references she obtained through television as a child. Citing cartoon animations as a vivid source of visual inspiration, where simple sketched forms are enlivened and transformed by the art of moving image, the shapes she presents seem like buoyant and highly spirited interpretations of those abstracted and essential forms first presented in the early 20th century by artists such as Brancusi and, later, Hepworth.[2] Her wooden sculptures, which are first carved with a chainsaw, then undergo a sanding and polishing process which brings them to a state of smooth and curved precision much like the idyllic scenes and characters which inspired them.
Her sculptures also maintain a close material relationship to her childhood, upbringing, and environment. The wood used for sculptures such as The Worm is always sourced locally from near her birthplace of Grancy, Switzerland. Taken from non-endangered species, Comte is committed to keeping up a sustainable practice which considers in both conceptual and real terms the relationship between anthropocentric activities and the conditions of the planet. Her work’s base in natural rather than plastic materials, its production in her outdoor studio in Grancy, her engagement with local forms of production, and her relationship with local craftsmen and women who work in the area are all elements of her practice which produce an authenticity in her work she believes could not be obtained in her Berlin studio.[3] Contained in the form of Sculpture Object 52, these conditions contribute much to the artist’s expansive, multi-layered and multi-dimensional practice. –Elsa Gray
PAST LOANS
Group exhibition: Abundant Futures
Venue: C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Córdoba
Curator: Daniela Zyman
April 1, 2022 - March 5, 2023
[1] https://artreview.com/features/2014_futuregreats_claudia_comte/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrEIJzTppw0&t=306s
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrEIJzTppw0&t=306s
68 x 29 x 13 cm (sculpture)
100 x 25 x 25 cm (plinth)
Giovanni Carmine has written that the question of how to activate sculpture is a primary concern for Claudia Comte.[1] In addition to paying a high level of critical attention to methods of display, her various responses to this question have dealt humorously and playfully with a legacy inherited from Modernism, combining traditional forms with styles and shapes derived from contemporary culture and the visual references she obtained through television as a child. Citing cartoon animations as a vivid source of visual inspiration, where simple sketched forms are enlivened and transformed by the art of moving image, the shapes she presents seem like buoyant and highly spirited interpretations of those abstracted and essential forms first presented in the early 20th century by artists such as Brancusi and, later, Hepworth.[2] Her wooden sculptures, which are first carved with a chainsaw, then undergo a sanding and polishing process which brings them to a state of smooth and curved precision much like the idyllic scenes and characters which inspired them.
Her sculptures also maintain a close material relationship to her childhood, upbringing, and environment. The wood used for sculptures such as The Worm is always sourced locally from near her birthplace of Grancy, Switzerland. Taken from non-endangered species, Comte is committed to keeping up a sustainable practice which considers in both conceptual and real terms the relationship between anthropocentric activities and the conditions of the planet. Her work’s base in natural rather than plastic materials, its production in her outdoor studio in Grancy, her engagement with local forms of production, and her relationship with local craftsmen and women who work in the area are all elements of her practice which produce an authenticity in her work she believes could not be obtained in her Berlin studio.[3] Contained in the form of Sculpture Object 52, these conditions contribute much to the artist’s expansive, multi-layered and multi-dimensional practice. –Elsa Gray
PAST LOANS
Group exhibition: Abundant Futures
Venue: C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Córdoba
Curator: Daniela Zyman
April 1, 2022 - March 5, 2023
[1] https://artreview.com/features/2014_futuregreats_claudia_comte/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrEIJzTppw0&t=306s
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrEIJzTppw0&t=306s
Claudia Comte, was born 1983 in Switzerland. Her work is defined by her interest on the memory of materials and by a careful observation of how the hand relates to different technologies.