CASSE-COU I ET II (GRAVURE D’HOMME)

This duo of German artists, based in Belgium, spontaneously formed on the benches of the Academy of Arts, Berlin. They quickly developed increasingly more monumental projects, approaching the mineral as a living organic substance (recently recognized as such by fundamental research). Schälling | Enderle work the rock extracted from quarries, unearth or salvage rocks as we bargain-hunt old objects. Concerned by the programmed disappearance of mineral « in the wild » caused by human exploitation, the artists document the rocky future of this piece of landscape by means of scrubbing on paper which becomes drawings-archives. The transformation of natural resources questions its consequences and our rightful place in this world.

Casse-cou is made of two installations that answer each other in a false symmetry studied with millimeter accuracy. A bit of religious marble is profaned in two shelves supported by frail fastening. A square rock found is left « raw » such a ready-made while another one is worked in curves.

Here the rock is staged with subtle references to its History (architecture, art history, etc.). The research is aesthetic and synthetic. The subtly wobbly artwork is a game of unsteadiness and irregularities. A doubt sets in. The intervention of the artists modifies our look and our perception of the rocky substance. Has it lost in mass ? Is it as light as aerial ?