Serge Hélénon’s “Palette palimpseste” is on view on the Fondation Clément (in Le François, Martinique) till February 14, 2023. In “Ceci n’est pas une rétrospective » (Aica Caraïbe du Sud) artwork historian and critic Dominique Brebion writes, “Hélénon’s work is advanced and dense, all the time renewed, stuffed with surprises, and a number of other visits are essential to extract the substantial marrow” (see extra excerpts beneath).
Description (by curator Giovanni Joppolo): For Serge Hélénon, artwork isn’t solely a device for documenting and representing actuality. On the paths of the world he travels, the fragments he finds are alive, and the true problem he pursues is to invent plastic gadgets able to changing into residing organisms, areas for dialogue and reconciliation of the human for the human.
[. . .] Hélénon’s precedence is that of the person able to decreeing and setting up artwork ranging from human nature. To do that, alongside the way in which, the artist collects probably the most numerous relics of a world that manufactures, consumes, throws away, or recycles. The paths (paths) traveled by Hélénon are those who irrigate the immense slum of this between-two-centuries that now we have been given to stay. And amongst this waste, the artist additionally finds pure relics (branches, pebbles, and so forth.) that he assembles with elaborate parts by dismantling the pallets used to stack merchandise by means of their transport from the locations the place probably the most numerous productions happen, to warehouses, then to ports, then to locations of distribution and sale of all globalized items.
This exhibition brings collectively for the primary time all of the moments and complementary levels of this lengthy quest carried out by the artist on actuality for over sixty years.
In her assessment “Ceci n’est pas une retrospective” (Aica Caraïbe du Sud) artwork historian Dominique Brebion writes:
“Hélénon makes his personal pigments to precisely dose the binder and the powder in an effort to receive the depth he’s searching for. [. . .] He leads a quest for the blue of his childhood, the blue that washerwomen used to make cotton or linen seem whiter, this synthetic ultramarine blue—sodium aluminosilicate thiosulphate—obtainable on the time in small balls with which, as a toddler, he liked to play and which left streaks of blue on his fingers.
The insertion of objects or fragments of objects doesn’t due to this fact exclude points that relate to portray. The whole lot has already been mentioned—and infrequently—about Hélénon assemblages. We are able to uncover two works on this exhibition, ‘Caddie d’une collecte’ (2019-2020)—title to be taken within the strictly literal sense—and ‘Résumé pluriel en tourniquet’ (2022)—accumulation of varied fragments awaiting meeting. They each provide a delicate and concrete method to his follow of recycling, of appropriation, revealing a stage in his mode of creation. [. . .]
Hélénon’s work is advanced and dense, all the time renewed, stuffed with surprises, and a number of other visits are essential to extract the substantial marrow.”
For extra info, see https://www.fondation-clement.org/fr/decouvrir-les-expositions/serge-helenon-palette-palimpseste
For full assessment by Dominique Brebion, go to https://aica-sc.web/2022/12/20/ceci-nest-pas-une-retrospective/
For extra on the artist, see https://galleryartveritas.com/helenonserge