Fabienne Lasserre at C.Ar.D
The first edition of C.Ar.D. – “Contemporary Art and Design” – inaugurates a series of exhibitions, installations and events by artists, photographers and designers in the hills around Piacenza from 12 September to 12 October 2014
Paolo Baldacci and Daniela Volpi thought of establishing an annual art festival that would represent an important link between the public and the exciting reality of contemporary art – an intriguing world so often surrounded by an aura of diffidence created by the many preconceived notions that accompany its reputation and the elitist forms through which it is often presented. From this point of departure, the two founders and a handful of equally determined friends (Cristina Baldacci for art, Franco Raggi for design, Andrea Kerbaker and Giulia Pellegrino for communications), set about defining the concept of C.Ar.D. (Contemporary Art & Design) and preparing the first edition of the event, which will take place for a month between the 12th of September and the 12th of October 2014, with the primary aim of overcoming the diffidence that conditions the wider public’s approach to Contemporary Art and Design, in order to render forms of expression that are all too often considered to be abstruse and out of context a comprehensible part of everyday life.
The organizers invited a select group of international artists who are unanimously judged to be some of the most interesting protagonists on the art scene, all of whom were asked to spend time in the valleys around Piacenza working on a series of site-specific installations to be hosted in locations earmarked for the occasion. C.Ar.D will therefore provide an almost unique opportunity to see these artists at work and create direct dialogue that will facilitate an understanding of the meaning of their works. This will be a rare opportunity, not only for the visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography), but also for the sector of design, where particular attention will be paid to aspects of design that are not bound by the limits of the production of everyday objects, thereby extending the focus to the experimental aesthetics of creative invention.
Lasserre’s work at C.Ar.D:
These pieces depend on simple actions that unite vision and movement: to peer over, to glance at, to look through, to gaze across, to hide behind. Thin sculptures stand as shaky membranes or unstill borders, creating divisions and enclosures in relation with a human body. They are seen in time. Not a static or linear time, but the time of movement and change. In the installation, color directs, unifies and separates. It bridges difference and reasserts it. In some instances, the color is airy and intangible: detachable from the surface. Other times, it is utterly, heavily material. As much object-like as bodily, the sculptures occupy a shared ground between the animate and the inanimate. A precarious quality suggester can affect them, too. The pieces are body, thing, context and observer, each relying on the other.