ART BRUSSELS
Nicolas Floc’h and Pep Vidal
On its third participation in Art Brussels, LMNO proposes a meeting between two worlds, that of the Sciences and that of Art. The two propositions will be illustrated respectively by Nicolas Floc’h and Pep Vidal.
For Nicolas Floc’h the composition of the marine environment, namely the sediment, plankton and detrital material contained in a body of water, will determine its turbidity, but also its colour.
With researchers at the marine research station in Wimereux, Nicolas Floc’h has been exploring since 2015 the question of the colour of water and of its relation to the productivity of oceans. Based on colour it is possible to determine the composition of environments and the type of phytoplankton present in them, which is a vital element for marine species and for all species on the planet, thus playing an essential role in climate regulation.
The work on the column of water reminds us of a flower-laden field such as the Impressionists represented it, but one that under water would become a green, blue or red monochrome. This vision refers us to the history of painting, indeed to art history as a whole, and in particular the period from monochrome to immersive installations, from Alphonse Allais through Yves Klein to James Turrell or Ann Veronica Janssens. If you change the scale, moving to that of the forms of coloured plankton, you come to Ernst Haeckel’s plates, to Buckminster Fuller’s architectures… Turbidity would thus be to the submarine landscape what the horizon is to the terrestrial landscape, a vanishing point towards the monochrome.
For the very first time Nicolas Floc’h will present a sculpture at the fair, an accurate representation of unicellular micro-algae produced through high-definition 3D imagery to a scale making it possible to approach their forms and consequently the formation of colour.
Work on the water column and colour is being carried on currently with the Wimereux teams (Hubert Loisel, Fabrice Lizon), within the framework of two projects, ‘Initium Maris’ and ‘Watercolour’, produced by Artconnexion and OAO. Following his residency aboard the schooner Tara in 2017, Nicolas Floc’h has also been working with the teams of Plankton Planet / Roscoff Biological Station (Colomban de Vargas, Noan Le Bescot, Sébastien Colin) on the forms of plankton.
Pep Vidal, mathematician, physicist and artist, usually works with the concept of infinitessimal changes -changes really small that we can not see until a bigger change happens- and systems -spaces where infinitessimal changes happen-.
He has shown his work at solo exhibitions at Abrons Arts Center (New York), Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya MNAC (Barcelona), ADN Gallery (Barcelona), LMNO Gallery (Brussels). He has also participated in various group exhibitions as Kunsthaus Baselland (Basel), Iselp (Brussels), Société (Brussels), Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), CAPC Bordeaux (Bordeaux), CENTRALE (Brussels), CaixaForum (Barcelona), Fundació Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona).
For the booth he presents some new works he started during his residendy at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam at 2018. They are based on the idea of the number 2: the minimum number for the interaction between systems. Two is the smallest prime number. Two and three are the only two consecutive prime numbers. 2 is the third (or fourth) Fibonacci number. Two is the base of the binary system, used extensively in computing. The smallest field has two elements.