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The painted “Narcissus”, attributed to Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio ca 1599, is the focal image of Francine LeClercq’s installation, whereas the erring gaze of Narcissus, the visual echo reverberating between the illusionistic picture plane and the actual gallery setting, the existential reciprocity between the subject and object, form and content,… are parallel notions and traits that LeClercq uses to investigate the modern context. LeClerq recently caught up with NY Arts to talk about his show on view. |
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The painted “Narcissus”, attributed to Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio ca 1599, is the focal image of Francine LeClercq’s installation, whereas the erring gaze of Narcissus, the visual echo reverberating between the illusionistic picture plane and the actual gallery setting, the existential reciprocity between the subject and object, form and content,… are parallel notions and traits that LeClercq uses to investigate the modern context. LeClerq recently caught up with NY Arts to talk about his show on view.
“My work has found its ground in the process of painting and the “idea” of painting, with a deeper focus on a complementary dialogue between materiality, content, the exhibition space, and the encounter with the viewer.
Often times my projects consist of multiples works, grouped around a specific theme related to painting and the question of viewing art. In this respect, I have always felt that there is something quite modern in the way Narcissus in Caravaggio’s painting is kneeling, looking down, utterly immersed, not too unlike a painter mesmerized by a pool of paint on the floor, and quite in contrast with the casual upright viewer in front of a painting, and I like this idea of the hybrid viewer/painter because it reaffirms the notion for me that the viewer is very much a component of the work; and by extension, the arrangement of the work in the space and the way the viewer enters a work, that is the choreographic aspect needed to be addressed.
Placed below a black spatial demarcation drawn at 60 inches above the floor (a convention of hanging art on center in a gallery to align with the eye of the spectator), two elliptical canvases, one depicting the isolated knee of the original painting (“Narcissus’ Knee”), and the other the reflected image without its counterpart ( “Narcissus’ Other”), face each other. Their low position invite the viewer to echo the physical genuflect and the lowered gaze of the mythical character in order to immerse himself in the compositional horizontality of the space. The third piece is a low horizontal reflecting puddle of black resin where the slightly raised outlines of Narcissus create distortion of the reflected space and viewer.”
“Francine LeClercq: Narcissus” on view until October 27, 2012 at SOHO2O CHELSEA Gallery
