Relief table – David Renaud

Table-relief [Relief table], David Renaud, Col de Larche, 2011

David-Renaud

2011, Col de Larche, VIAPAC contemporary art trail, corten steel

With Table-relief, in reference to forms of representations of the local area, David Renaud proposes the experience of being simultaneously above, in front of and in the landscape. The orientation table, an emblem of contemplative tourism, is associated with the relief map, a 3D retranscription of the landscape for strategic and military purposes. This dialogue between tourism and defence of an area resonates with the Col de Larche, which is both a border defended by the forts that mark it and a place of passage and exchanges between cultures. Nevertheless broken up by colours, borders and dotted lines, the landscape loses its perceptible, physical dimension. Conceived as a starting point, this sculpture is an invitation to depart from it: in walking along the ridges, in following the faults and the peaks, the walker lets him/herself be dominated, makes the mountain a lived space and gives new relief to its summits.

The artist David Renaud was born in 1965 in Grenoble, and he lives and works in Paris. Landscape is central to his artistic work, with the geographical/topographical map as its starting point. While applying himself to respect this fundamental resource in the study of our environment, which is considered a basis for grasping any landscape, he exercises his freedom in the construction of the structures and in the form of these works. In his installations, the scales are disrupted, the distances are reduced, and temporality is nullified. He then questions our relationship with landscape by proposing that we move away from a vision that is too codified and too conceptualised.

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